ABSTRACT
It has long been recognized that the ultimate compressive strength of plates and stiffened panels decreases due to the presence of welding-induced residual stress (Guedes Soares, 1988). Gordo & Guedes Soares (1993) developed an approximate procedure for determining load shortening curves for stiffened plates under uniaxial compression and showed the effect of residual stresses. Guedes Soares & Gordo (1996) derived the equations to assess the strength of plates subjected to biaxial compressive and lateral pressure loads, including both effects of initial distortions and residual stresses. Due to the difficulty in measuring residual stress, idealization of the residual stress distribution has been used in most of the researches (i.e. Faulkner, 1975; Guedes Soares, 1988; Khan & Zhang, 2011; Paik & Sohn, 2012).
