FULL-SCALE EXPERIMENTS AND ANALYSES OF CELLULAR HULL SECTIONS IN COMPRESSION

Compression tests were conducted on high-strength single-cell and mult iple-cell box sections with plate width-to-thickness (b/t) ratios rang ing from 48 to 96. Local plate buckling occurred at stresses as low as 5 percent of the yield stress, whereas the ultimate compression stres s ranged from 38 to 72 percent of the yield stress. These critical str esses were not significantly affected by the length of the specimen, t he number of cells, the boundary conditions, or lateral load. Simple e mpirical design equations based only on b/t gave estimates of the coll apse strength within five percent in all cases. Finite-element analyse s were able to predict the significant reserve load-carrying capacity and ductility after ultimate load, which was dependent on the length o f the specimen as well as the b/t ratio.