NUMERICAL SIMULATION AND CONSTRUCTAL DESIGN APPLIED TO THE GEOMETRIC ANALYSIS OF STEEL PLATES WITH RECTANGULAR OR TRAPEZOIDAL STIFFENERS

Abstract

This study applied the Constructal Design method associated with computational modeling to analyze the behavior of steel plates with rectangular or trapezoidal stiffeners subjected to uniform transverse loading. To do so, a rectangular plate without stiffeners was adopted as reference and a portion of its volume was converted into stiffeners by the parameter Ï• which is the ratio between the material volume of the stiffeners and the total material volume of the reference plate. Assuming Ï• = 0.3, five plate arrangements with rectangular stiffeners and five with trapezoidal stiffeners were configured. The results showed that plates with trapezoidal stiffeners can reduce the maximum deflection until 35.9% compared to plates with rectangular stiffeners. In addition, the results indicated that plates with trapezoidal stiffeners have better performance in relation to the minimization of the maximum deflection when the shortest base length of the trapezoidal stiffener is 30% of its longest base length.