GENERALIZATION OF A SIMPLIFIED METHOD FOR PREDICTING ULTIMATE COMPRESSIVE STRENGTH OF SHIP PANELS

A simplified method for predicting ultimate compressive strength of ship panels has been proposed in (4). The method is very interesting and potentially will he very useful for design because it is very simple and it can take account of the influence of the initial deflection shape. However, in their original approach, it was assumed that the total deflection function always takes the same form as the initial deflection. This may not always be the case, inparticular when the amplitude of the initial deflection is small. This assumption is relaxed in the present paper and by applying a similar procedure, a slightly different cubic equation for the elastic large deflection solution is obtained. Based on this generalization, various factors affecting the ultimate compressive strength of ship panels can be discussed within this theoretical framework.