Table 1 can be seen : that the material cost increases as the plate thickness increases, whereas the cutting cost little affected. the welding cost decreases initially as the plate thickness increases from 10 to and then increases as the plate thickness increases to This appar- stiffener stiffener for the nodal joint

doi:10.1201/9781482271355-153

Chapter

ABSTRACT

From Table 1 it can be seen that the material cost increases as the plate thickness increases, whereas the cutting cost is little affected. However, the welding cost decreases initially as the plate thickness increases from 10 to 15mm, and then increases as the plate thickness increases from 15mm to 20mm. This apparent anomaly is simply due to the decision to adopt discrete weld sizes as used in practice. As a result the same weld size is necessary for both the 10mm and 15mm thick stiffeners, whereas a larger weld size is required for the 20mm thick stiffener. The stress level in the weld for the 10mm thick stiffener is lower than that in the weld for the 15mm thick stiffener, but not sufficiently low to permit a smaller weld size. Consideration could be given to the benefits of reducing the weld length and therefore increasing the weld stress by adopting a truncated stiffener detail, such as that shown in Fig 5.