Minimum Stiffness Criteria for Edge Reinforcements of Elastically Clamped Plates

In many structural situations, e.g. in aerospace engineering, composite plates with edge reinforcements are used, for example as stiffeners of a fuselage section of an airplane. Based on an explicit analysis of the buckling behavior of the laminate plate, a minimum stiffness criterion is presented in this contribution. A transformation of the governing equations into a dimensionless system is used, that proved to be very advantageous. Besides a minimum stiffness criterion that can be used for generation of minimum stiffness diagrams, an absolute minimum stiffness is found that enables the reinforcement to act like a simple support for arbitrarily slender plates. The relevance of the criteria for stiffener design is discussed. (© 2010 Wiley‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)