The ultimate strength of doubler plate reinforced Y-joints under compression loading

It is common practice in the offshore industry to solve the punching shear problem due to compression by using doubler plate. The finite-element method is a useful tool for studying this problem. The aim of this paper is to study the static strength of doubler plate reinforced Y-joints subjected to compression loading. The finite-element method is adopted in numerical parametric studies. The individual influences of the geometric parameters βand τd (doubler plate to chord wall thickness ratio) and ld/d1 (dubler plate length to brace diameter ratio) on the ultimate strength are made clear. The results show the size of plate may have important effects on the strength of reinforced joints. It is found that the ultimate strength of Y-joints reinforced with appropriately proportioned doubler plates can be greatly improved nearly up tothree times to un-reinforced Y-joints.