DESIGN AND ANALYSIS OF HIGH PRESSURE DOOR WITH STIFFENED PLATE

DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING Page 1

1 INTRODUCTION
This paper examines several aspects of stiffened plate structure, with an emphasis on
application to the high pressure door system. A stiffened plate is formed of a flat deck plate
integrally stiffened with stiffeners in the longitudinal and in the transverse directions. The
stiffeners are attached to the bottom side of the door plate and have different stiffness in the
orthogonal directions which is sometimes called an eccentrically stiffened orthotropic plate.
1.1 Theory of stiffened plate
A thin steel plate is very flexible when it carries loads that act in the direction of its
normal but it is extremely stiff when the loads are applied within its plane. It is this rigidity
which engineer attempt to utilize when they design thin walled structure such as door, plate
girders, box girders and so on. This restraint can be provided by folding the plate along parallel
lines, which lie in the longitudinal direction, or restraining a plate is to provide longitudinal
stiffener, which are additional plate elements whose planes are inclined to that of the plate. Thus
the concept of a stiffened plate has been developed and now a stiffened plate panel forms the
basic building block of many thin steel structures. There are basically two types of stiffener
1] Open section stiffener 2] Closed cross section stiffener.

The stiffened panel with closed cross section as shown in figure 1(b) has considerably
greater resistance to twisting moments than single connected or so called open sections. Thus the
local distortions of closed cross sections are less and it has advantages for door because there is
less likelihood of cracking of the pavement under normal pressure load. Due to use of
intermediate transverse and longitudinal stiffeners serves a dual purpose; it increases an initial
buckling load and also enables the web to carry load in excess of initial buckling due to the so
DESIGN AND ANALYSIS OF HIGH PRESSURE DOOR WITH STIFFENED PLATE

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called tension field effect. There are basically four methods are used for the design and analysis
of stiffened plate as given below.
1. Analysis of an equivalent grid or beam and plate system.
2. Solution of the differential equation from orthotropic plate theory.
3. Approximate solution from Energy Principle.
4. Approximate solution by FEM.
The solution of the problem discussed in this paper is obtained by using the differential equation
from orthotropic plate theory by Naviers method.

DESIGN AND ANALYSIS OF HIGH PRESSURE DOOR WITH STIFFENED PLATE

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2. ANALYTICAL SOLUTION
A door having clean opening area 1200 x 2000 mm
2
subjected to high pressure air of 0.1 N/mm
2

provided that the maximum deflection of the bottom door plate should be limited to 10 mm.
Material selection:
Bottom door plate = M.S. (I.S. 2062), Stiffener = M.S. (I.S. 2062),
Yield stress of mild steel = = 250 N/ mm
2

2.1 Case I: Door Plate without Stiffener
Door plate of high pressure door system is nothing but rectangular plate. This rectangular plate is
simply supported subjected to high pressure air. The maximum deflection of the door plate can
be founded by using Naviers equation
wmox =
4qu
4
n
6

---2.1
Where, D=flexural rigidity=
Lh
3
12(1-
2
)
---2.2
As the door plate material is mild steel, consider the following parameters.
= possions ratio = 0.3, h = Thickness of door plate = 5 mm, E = 210000 N/mm
2

q = pressure load acting over door plate = 0.1 N/mm
2
, a = width of door plate = 1200 mm.
By using above values we can get the maximum deflection.
W
max
= 358.63 mm

2.2 Case II: Door plate with vertical stiffener
In case I, it was observed that the door plate without any stiffener leads to more
deflection than required. So it becomes necessary to use stiffeners to make door more rigid. It is
possible to consider two vertical C channels of closed cross-section stiffeners attached to the
DESIGN AND ANALYSIS OF HIGH PRESSURE DOOR WITH STIFFENED PLATE

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bottom door plate. With the addition of these stiffeners it is possible to find out maximum
deflection for such stiffened plate with all edges are simply supported, by using Naviers
equation.


Maximum deflection of stiffened door plate is given by Naviers method
----2.3
For this high pressure door plate,
d = Spacing between the stiffener =492 mm, a = Width of the door plate=1200 mm.
b = Depth of the door plate=2000 mm, q = uniformly distributed press.=0.1N/mm
2

I = M.I. of one stiffener about the mid-plane of bottom door plate=3865926.67 mm
4

E = Modulus of elasticity of plate material=210000 N/mm
2

E* = Modulus of elasticity of vertical stiffener material=210000 N/mm
2

= Possions ratio=0.3, h = Thickness of the bottom door plate= 5 mm.
By using the above parameters, we can get


DESIGN AND ANALYSIS OF HIGH PRESSURE DOOR WITH STIFFENED PLATE

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Table 1. Values for case II


By using all the above values in equation (2.3), we obtained the maximum deflection.
W
max
= 15.78 mm
It can be observed that still the maximum deflection value for this case is more than
permissible limit (10 mm). Therefore it becomes necessary to provide the stiffener in horizontal
direction also.
2.3 Case III: Door plate with vertical and horizontal stiffener
The maximum deflection of the door plate is still more than 10mm; hence it is necessary to
provide horizontal stiffeners along with two vertical stiffeners, which results in different value of
flexural rigidity in X - directions as compared to case II.

For this door plate,
d
1
= spacing between the stiffener in X-direction= 492mm
d
2
= spacing between the stiffener in Y-direction=334 mm
I
1
= M.I. of one stiffener of closed C cross section about the mid plane of the bottom door
Plate =3865926.67 mm
4

DESIGN AND ANALYSIS OF HIGH PRESSURE DOOR WITH STIFFENED PLATE

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I
2
= M.I. of one stiffener of rectangular cross section about the mid plane of the bottom door
Plate = 482291.66mm
4

By using the above parameters, we can get

By using above values in equation (2.3), we obtained the maximum deflection.
W
max
= 6.61 mm
As the maximum deflection of the door plate of the high pressure door is reduced up to 6.61mm
which less than 10 mm (prescribed limit), it can be concluded that design is safe.

DESIGN AND ANALYSIS OF HIGH PRESSURE DOOR WITH STIFFENED PLATE

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3 NUMERICAL VALIDATION
In this section, the Naviers method is validated by comparison against a detailed Finite
Element model. Design the door for maximum clean opening area 1200 x 2000 mm
2
subjected to
pressurized air of 0.1 N/mm
2
pressure, so that the deflection of the door plate is required to be
limited to 10 mm.
3.1 Case I: Door Plate without Stiffener
The bottom door plate without stiffener subjected to high pressure air shown in figure.5 (a) is
considered for FEA Analysis using ANSYS. This pressurized air is uniformly distributed over
the door plates inner surface. The bottom door plate model consist of 4 flat plates having 12
holes for passage of shooting bolts which provide support to the door plate. The thickness of
bottom door plate is 5 mm and that of flat plate is 10 mm, pressure load acting over door plate is
0.1 N/mm
2
, width of door plate over which air is acting 1200mm, Modulus of elasticity is
210000 N/mm
2


As shown in figure.5 (b), the maximum deflection of door plate without any stiffener for given
pressure load condition obtained by finite element analysis using ANSYS is 229.87 mm.
3.2 Case II: Door plate with vertical stiffeners
As the maximum deflection obtained in case I is far more than the permissible value 10 mm. So
the stiffeners are provided for reducing the deflection and increase in strength of the door plate.
In this case, two closed cross section box type stiffeners in vertical direction are used. The
DESIGN AND ANALYSIS OF HIGH PRESSURE DOOR WITH STIFFENED PLATE

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thickness of the vertical stiffener is 5 mm. This model is also subjected to same pressure
condition.

As shown in figure 6 (b), the maximum deflection of the door plate with vertical stiffeners
obtained by finite element analysis using ANSYS software is 13.45 mm.

3.3 Door plate with vertical and horizontal stiffeners
In this arrangement the bottom door plate is provided along with vertical and horizontal
stiffeners. This structure is nothing but like grid structure. In this model it is possible to
providing 15 horizontal stiffeners. Due to increased stiffeners it is possible to getting stronger
structure leading to reduction in deflection. The thickness of the horizontal stiffener is 10 mm.

DESIGN AND ANALYSIS OF HIGH PRESSURE DOOR WITH STIFFENED PLATE

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As shown in figure 7(b), the maximum deflection of the door plate with vertical stiffener and
horizontal stiffeners obtained by finite element analysis using ANSYS software is 6.66 mm
which is desirable.

DESIGN AND ANALYSIS OF HIGH PRESSURE DOOR WITH STIFFENED PLATE

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4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
It is possible to compare the maximum deflection obtained by analytical method and
finite element method. By comparison it is come to know that the results obtained by these two
methods are very close to each other. Table No.3 Comparison of deflection


DESIGN AND ANALYSIS OF HIGH PRESSURE DOOR WITH STIFFENED PLATE

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5. CONCLUSION
The example presented in this paper demonstrates the practical application of stiffeners in
the design of door system. A high pressure door model is developed and correlated in this paper.
The model encompasses analytical representations of the door without stiffeners and with
vertical, horizontal stiffeners. As shown in table no.3 the deflections obtained by both the
methods are very close to each other. From the results obtained by all three steps it is proved that
the deflection of the door plate decreases, as the number of stiffeners are increases. Thus the
arrangement of the door plate having vertical as well as horizontal stiffeners can be used to get
the desired result.

DESIGN AND ANALYSIS OF HIGH PRESSURE DOOR WITH STIFFENED PLATE

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REFERENCES
[1] W.H.Hoppann, Baltimore M.D. Bending of orthogonally stiffened plates
[2] NJ.HuffingtonTheo. determination of rigidity properties of orthogonally stiffened plate
[3] Stephen P. TimoshenkoTheory of plates and shells.
[4] K.Bhaskar Analysis of plates. pp 151-152 Narosa Publishing House, London 1999.