ABSTRACT
The article presents a study on the structural response behavior of plates and stiffened panels under combined cyclic biaxial loading and pressure. A series of finite element analyses on plates and stiffened panels with uniform plate thickness are conducted, investigating the effect of various geometric characteristics (aspect ratio, plate slenderness ratio, column slenderness ratio) and of loading scenarios, including different strain ratio values between the loading edges and pressure. The results provide useful insights on the structural behavior of plates and stiffened panels under high amplitude cyclic biaxial loading and pressure. It is found that, for the plates and all load scenarios, structural degradation becomes more pronounced with the increasing plate slenderness ratio. The structural degradation of the stiffened panels is influenced by the column slenderness ratio when subjected to pressure and different strain ratios. Finally, the paper assesses the structural response behavior of a 6800 TEU containership bottom stiffened panel with non-uniform plate thickness, subjected to biaxial cyclic loading with different strain ratios and pressure.
