ABSTRACT
The design approach for longitudinally stiffened plates in the relevant Eurocode interprets the stiffener buckling as a combination of so-called plate-like behavior and column-like behavior. In this paper an alternative design approach is presented for the problem of compressed plates with longitudinal trapezoidal stiffeners. One single Winter-type buckling curve is proposed for the calculation of the reduction factor for stiffener buckling. The proposed buckling curve is described by one single formula, but with some geometry-dependent parameters. The parameters are determined and the results are evaluated by large number of advanced finite element analyses.
