Effect of Temperature on The Ultimate Strength of Imperfect Rectangular Steel Plate Under In-Plane Compression Loading

Abstract

A nonlinear finite element method is applied to compute the elastic-plastic thermally postbuckling behavior of initially deflected rectangular steel plate under in-plane compression loading. Classical first order shear deformation is assumed using nine-node isoparametric Lagrangian elements to develop the finite element analysis procedure. The geometric and material nonlinearities are included in the present study. Some of effects were studied in the present study such as temperature gradient, initial imperfection, slenderness ratio, and aspect ratio. Based on this study, the main conclusion that the ultimate strength of steel plate depends on the temperature gradient where the ultimate strength will decrease about 11% for slenderness ratio (b/t=120) and about 41% for slenderness ratio (b/t=40) when the temperature increasing from (0.0 oC) to (100oC).