Failure of Composite Stiffened Plates Loaded in Compression

The buckling and ultimate failure characteristics of composite stiffened panels loaded in compression are investigated analytically and experimentally. Three different parameters are considered. These are stiffener pitch, type of stiffener and panel lamination. For the stiffener pitch two values are considered. Also, two stiffener types are investigated, namely angle stiffeners and Z-shaped stiffeners. For the last parameter two different stackings are studied, namely (+45O), and (00/900)s. The analytical and experimental results for the critical buckling stresses are close to each other. The (+ 450)s gives higher buckling stress than the (00/900)s laminates. The final failure stress also follows the same trend.