OPTIMUM DESIGN AND EVALUATION OF STIFFENED PANELS WITH PRACTICAL LOADING

Optimum design of a blade-stiffened panel of composite/honeycomb sandw ich construction and a metal T-stiffened panel is considered using the buckling and strength constraint program VICONOPT. Both panels have p ractical loadings which produce a nonlinear out-of-plane bending momen t, calculated using beam-column expressions. Large deflection finite e lement analysis of the optima shows that modifications to these expres sions are necessary when the panels are shear loaded. The use of integ rally machined stiffeners, as opposed to a conventional, built-up pane l designed using PANDA2, is shown to permit 20% mass saving when the l atter has no postbuckling strength and 3% saving when postbuckling str ength is allowed for.