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Abstract
The presence of initial imperfections in thin-walled structures fabricated by welding is inevitable. Hence, in this work, the types of initial imperfections and their influences on loading capacity of stiffened panels are comprehensively introduced, and deeply discussed and evaluated. A series of nonlinear finite element analyses of a stiffened panel with and without initial imperfections under uniaxial compression are performed using ANSYS software. It is seen that the existence of initial deflections not only drives the collapse mode, but also changes the stress distribution and reduces significantly the ultimate strength of the panel. This reduction of ultimate strength is larger in case of consideration the effect of welding-induced stresses.