Stability of longitudinally stiffened web plates under interactive shear and bending forces

Local buckling of web plates having a longitudinal stiffener in different positions under simultaneous shear and in-plane bending is investigated. The interaction study is carried out by both numerical simulation of the problem utilizing finite element method, and by an analytical procedure based on energy method using trigonometric functions. Interaction curves show that the existence of small amounts of in-plane bending may increase the shear buckling capacity, and that the introduction of a longitudinal stiffener significantly increases the critical stress of web plates. Also a very good correlation between the proposed energy method and the finite element method is obtained.