Benjamin Braun is managing partner at engineering firm Space Structures GmbH, Berlin, Germany. Formerly he was a scientific researcher at the Institute of Structural Design of the University of Stuttgart where he was in charge of co-writing the German National Annex to EN 1993-1-5 first generation and secretary of ECCS Technical Working Group 8.3 "Plate buckling".

Rolando Chacón is associate professor at the Technical University of Catalonia, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. He is an active contributor to the ECCS Technical Committee 8 "Stability" and has also participated in the ECCS Technical Working Group 8.3 "Plate Buckling". His research fields include experimental and non-linear numerical analysis of steel structures in phenomena associated with plate buckling and ductility.

Hervé Degée is professor at Hasselt University (Belgium) and head of the Construction Engineering Research Group. He is a member of the ECCS Technical Working Group 8.3 "Plate buckling" and of the CEN/TC250/SC3/WG5 and WG22 committees. He was Project Team leader for the second generation of EN 1993-1-5. He is active in different research fields related to structural design, modelling and testing.

Yves Duchêne is an engineer at the design office Greisch in Liège, Belgium. He is manager of the R&D Department where he is mainly involved in the development of a FEM structural analysis software.

László Dunai is professor at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Department of Structural Engineering. He is member of ECCS Technical Working Group 8.3 "Plate buckling" and of the CEN/TC250/SC3/WG5 committees. He is convenor of the CEN/TC250/SC3/WG22 and leader of the developer team for the new prEN 1993-1-14 ?Design assisted by finite element analysis?.

Balázs Kövesdi is associate professor at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Department of Structural Engineering. He is secretary of ECCS Technical Working Group 8.3 "Plate buckling" and member of CEN/TC250/SC3/WG5; WG13 and WG22 committees. He was also member of the Project Team for the development of the second generation EN 1993-1-5.

Ulrike Kuhlmann is professor for steel, timber and composite structures at the Institute of Structural Design of the University of Stuttgart. She is member of ECCS Technical Committee 8 "Stability" and chair of the Technical Working Group 8.3 "Plate buckling" and of CEN/TC250/SC3/WG5, the committee closely related to this document. She has been chairing CEN/TC250/SC3 ?Design of Steel Structures? committee from 2009 to 2022 and as a leader of this team, she guided the development process of the second generation of Eurocode 3.

Gerhard Lener was professor at the University of Innsbruck, Department of Structural Engineering and Material Sciences. He was member of ECCS Technical Working Group 8.3 "Plate buckling" and of the CEN/TC250/SC3/WG5, as well as of WG9 responsible for EN 1993-1-9 Fatigue and of WG22. He participated in the Project Team for the second generation of EN 1993-1-5. Significant part of his research work is related to the FEM-based design of steel structures.

Vahid Pourostad is scientific researcher at the University of Stuttgart, Institute for Structural Design. His research work is closely linked to the research activities of the ECCS Technical Working Group 8.3 "Plate buckling" and of the CEN/TC250/SC3/WG5 committees and to the analysis of steel plated structures using finite element modelling.

Franc Sinur was researcher at the University of Ljubljana, Chair for Metal Structures. He actively contributed to the research work of the ECCS Technical Working Group 8.3 "Plate buckling" and of the CEN/TC250/SC3/WG5. His research activities were closely related to the stability behaviour of steel plated structures and FEM-based design of steel structures.

Ralph Timmers is a scientific researcher at the University of Innsbruck, Department of Structural Engineering and Material Sciences. He was a Proxy Member of ECCS Technical Working Group 8.3 "Plate buckling".

1 INTRODUCTION
2 AREA OF APPLICATION
Typical rectangular plates
Arbitrary geometries and boundary conditions
3 CALCULATION METHODS AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS
Overview of calculation methods
Linear analysis
Linear buckling analysis
Material nonlinear analysis
Geometric nonlinear analysis including imperfections (GNIA)
Geometric and material nonlinear analysis including imperfections (GMNIA)
Software requirements
4 MODELLING (PREPROCESSING)
Material properties
Mesh discretisation
Boundary conditions
Imperfections
5 SOLUTION SETTINGS
General
Importance of large deformations
Prestress effect
Solver selection
Setting the convergence criterion
Time increment settings
Overcome convergency problems
Solution printout
6 EVALUATION AND VERIFICATION (POSTPROCESSING) AND INTERPRETATION OF RESULTS
Evaluation
Verification
Interpretation
7 BENCHMARK EXAMPLES
Longitudinally stiffened panel under normal force
Longitudinally stiffened panel subjected to shear force
Web in bending with weak stiffeners
Transversally stiffened steel plate girder subjected to patch loading
8 WORKED EXAMPLES
Bottom plate with trapezoidal stiffeners
Web subjected to shear and bending
Patch loading verification of a box girder bridge
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
REFERENCES