Buckling of thin-walled composite structures with intermediate stiffeners

The interactive buckling of prismatic, thin-walled composite columns with open sections, reinforced with intermediate stiffeners and with edge reinforcements, has been considered. The columns are assumed to be simply supported. The nonlinear problem has been solved with the Koiter’s asymptotic theory within the first order approximation. The asymptotic theory of the first order nonlinear approximation allows for simultaneous evaluation of the effect of imperfections and interactions of various modes of buckling on the behaviour of thin-walled structures. This evaluation can be only the lower bound estimation of the load carrying capacity. Detailed calculations have been made for several cases of columns.