To introduce the series of lectures on plates showing the uses of plates to resist in-plane and out-of-plane loading and their principal modes of behaviour both as single panels and as assemblies of stiffened plates.
SUMMARY
This lecture introduces the uses of plates and plated assemblies in steel structures. It describes the basic behaviour of plate panels subject to in-plane or out-of-plane loading, highlighting the importance of geometry and boundary conditions. Basic buckling modes and mode interaction are presented. It introduces the concept of effective width and describes the influence of imperfections on the behaviour of practical plates. It also gives an introduction to the behaviour of stiffened plates.
1. INTRODUCTION
Plates are very important elements in steel structures. They can be assembled into complete members by the basic rolling process (as hot rolled sections), by folding (as cold formed sections), and by welding. The efficiency of such sections is due to their use of the high in-plane stiffness of one plate element to support the edge of its neighbour, thus controlling the out-of-plane behaviour of the latter.
The size of plates in steel structures varies from about 0.5mm thickness and 1200mm width in a corrugated steel sheet or a flat cassette for facade to about 150mm thick and 5m width in long span bridge girder, composite or not. Whatever the scale of construction, the plate panel will have a thickness t that is much smaller than the width b or length a. As will be seen later, the most important geometric parameter for plates is b/t and this will vary, in an efficient plate structure, within the range 30 to 250.
By closing this message, you consent to our cookies on this device in accordance with our cookie policy unless you have disabled them. You can change your cookie settings at any time, but parts of our site will not function correctly without them.
