A weighted extended B-spline solver for bending and buckling of stiffened plates

The weighted extended B-spline method [Hoellig (2003)] is applied to bending and buckling problems of plates with different shapes and stiffener arrangements. The discrete equations are obtained from the energy contributions of the different components constituting the system by means of the Rayleigh-Ritz approach. The pre-buckling or plane stress is computed by means of Airy's stress function. A boundary data extension algorithm for the weighted extended B-spline method is derived in order to solve for inhomogeneous Dirichlet boundary conditions. A series of benchmark tests is performed touching various aspects influencing the accuracy of the method.