The paper addresses the problem of the influence of randomly distributed corrosion wastage on the collapse strength and behaviour of unstiffened/stiffened steel plates in longitudinal compression. A series of elastic-plastic large deflection finite element analyses is performed on both-sides randomly corroded steel plates and stiffened plates. The effects of general corrosion are introduced into the finite element models using a novel random thickness surface model. Buckling strength, post-buckling behaviour, ultimate strength and post-ultimate behaviour of the models are investigated as results of both-sides random corrosion.
imperfection, steel; plate; stiffener; both-sides corrosion; random thickness surface model; ultimate strength; buckling strength; behaviour; nonlinear finite element analysis