ABSTRACT
The effects of initial deflections assumed as a random field on post-buckling collapse strength of plates are studied. Essential for the study is a normalisation of the imperfections by an energy measure allowing the assessment of lower-bound solutions to the plate strength. Both measured and theoretical realisations of the random field are considered. The experimental data are taken from databases on distortions of stiffened plating in ships. The lower bounds and strengths obtained for the measured imperfections are used to express the plate strength as a function of two random variables. An inverse FORM-based reliability analysis is applied to obtain statistical characteristics of the strength function.
