Post-buckling analysis of a thin stiffened plate with uncertain initial deflection via interval analysis

The post-buckling behavior of the thin stiffened plates with uncertain initial deflection under uni-direction compression load is investigated based on Von-Karman large deflection theory. The uncertain initial deflections are considered to be unknown except that they belong to a given set in the interval range. Interval analysis model for computing the bounds of curves of the post-buckling deflection versus load of the plate is presented. Interval analysis model is compared with the stochastic model, which is taken as the benchmarks of accuracy for judgment. The results indicate that the non-probabilistic and stochastic methods will produce similar results for a large deviation of uncertainty. If the probabilistic information is unavailable, one should not propose the probabilistic method based on an arbitrary assumption on the distribution of the deflection coefficients. Rather, one should use the non-probabilistic method to uncertainty.