Using D-stress or G-stress

D – stress: General stress decomposed into membrane and

bending parts
For instance: when you have typical I beam subjected to bending.
In flanges D-stresses membrane are almost equal G-stresses because D-stresses
bending is very small:
But when you consider plate subjected to pure bending, D-stress membrane will
give you stress equal 0! And G-stress will be equal D-stress bending:
Looking also in G-stress and D-stress bending in those areas where out of plane
load is present i.e. knuckles points on flanges, some rapid change of shapes etc.

D-Stress membrane could be used to evaluate global strength of cover –

similar to example with I beam above.
But D-Stress membrane will show wrong stress in TP because local bending is
not included – see example with bending plate above.
However G-stress will plot complete stress in TP which are above the limit
In my opinion we shouldn’t care about this because this is a local issue due to
“T” connection TP with web where FEM method overstates values, and that’s
one of the reason why we calculates TP thickness analytically in accordance
with relevant rules.