Structural Engineering & Statics
where the load goes
Concept

Stiffener — where it appears

A plate welded to a girder web to carry a local force or to shorten the panel that buckles. Bearing stiffeners take a reaction directly into the flanges, and intermediate ones divide the web so that its buckling is checked against a panel rather than against the whole depth.

Named by 2 essays across 2 fields — each of them below, with the objects they name alongside it.

s_s = 100l_y = 559flangewebspread 5.6 times the bearingyield resistance 1586 kN · elastic critical 510 kNresistance 450 kN at a slenderness of 1.76

The load that chooses its own length

Every other load in this collection arrives over a length somebody decided. A wheel on a crane girder does not — the flange bends under it and spreads it along the web, and how far it spreads is an output of the flange's own stiffness against the web's own strength. The effective length is 5.6 times the bearing that produced it.

stability · patch loading as builtthe same fold under axial pull, exaggeratedE along the girder = 222 N/mm², against 210 GPa for the plate itselfso the web takes 0.106% of the bending stress and all of the shear

The web that carries no bending

A corrugated web needs no stiffeners, because the folds give it in one direction a depth it does not have in its thickness. In the other direction the same folds make it an accordion — and a web that cannot be stretched cannot carry a bending stress at all.

sections · corrugated web

Named alongside it

The objects these essays reach for when they reach for this one.

Local bucklingPlate bucklingAccordion effectBearingCorrugated webCrane girderEffective loaded lengthFabricationFlangeLaunchingLever armOrthotropic plate

All concepts