Homogenization of multiwall plates—An analytical, numerical and experimental study

Multiwall plates consist of parallel thin-walled plates connected by a given number of vertical ribs to yield a light and yet a high strength structure. Unlike composite and sandwich plates, the multiwall plate does not have cross-section material continuity and therefore cannot be analyzed in terms of stress distribution in a simple way. The first order shear deformation theory (FSDT) model is used to obtain a homogeneous plate. Innovative analytic and finite element models were developed to obtain the elastic equivalent constants of the plate. A good matching was obtained between the analytic model results and the numerical ones. It turned out that the analytical approach cannot yield all the elastic equivalent constants, therefore an experimental approach was developed and implemented to obtain all the equivalent elastic constants of a typical multiwall plate. Those results were in good matching with the numerical finite element ones. The structural response to loading for the orthotropic equivalent plate can be easily calculated either analytically, numerically or experimentally.