Stainless Steel Plate Girders Subjected to Shear Buckling at Normal and Elevated Temperatures

Abstract

Plate girders are widely used as structural members in the steel construction industry because of their ability to support heavy loads over long spans. Therefore, it is very important to know their behaviour under different conditions. For material efficiency, plate girders usually have slender webs when compared to the ones on commercial hot rolled profiles, making them prone to the occurrence of shear buckling. In case of fire, shear buckling may be precipitated due to the reduction of the steel mechanical properties caused by the elevated temperatures. Regarding the resistance determination, numerical simulation has been gaining an edge on experimental analysis over the past years, mainly due to the high cost of the fire resistance experimental tests. However, the numerical models must be properly validated in order to perform reliable numerical studies. With this purpose, as no experimental tests in stainless steel plate girders subjected to elevated temperatures were found, a total of 34 experimental tests at normal temperature have been numerically modelled. The tested stainless steel plate girders had different configurations, provided with transversal and longitudinal stiffeners. Comparative analyses between those experimental and numerical results have been done. Afterwards, the developed numerical model has been used to perform a sensitivity analysis on the influence of the initial geometric imperfections at both normal and elevated temperatures, considering different values for its amplitudes. The effect of the residual stresses has also been analysed at normal temperature and in case of fire. Finally, comparisons between the numerical results and the Eurocode 3 design procedures have been performed.

Shear resistance and design of stainless steel plate girders in fire

“…Despite the presence of a high number of research studies into the behaviour of stainless steel plate girders at room temperature and stainless steel columns, beams and beamcolumns in fire in the literature, there is very limited research into the elevated temperature behaviour and design of stainless steel plate girders, where Reis et al [32] assessed the accuracy of adopting the room temperature stainless steel plate girder design rules of EN 1993-1-4 [10] with the elevated temperature material properties of stainless steel for the design of stainless steel plate girders in fire. It was highlighted in [32] that the use of the EN 1993-1-4 [9] room temperature stainless steel plate girder design rules with the elevated temperature material properties of stainless steel can lead to scattered and unsafe ultimate resistance predictions for stainless steel plate girders in fire and new, bespoke fire design rules are necessary for stainless steel plate girders. However, thus far, no new fire design proposals that are in accordance with EN 1993-1-2 [9] and EN 1993-1-4 [10] have been put forward for the accurate and safe design of stainless steel plate girders at elevated temperatures.…”

Numerical study on stainless steel I-shaped links on eccentrically braced frames

“…Hot-rolled, cold-formed and built-up stainless steel members have been studied when subjected to various types of loading and geometrical configurations [46]. The particular case of stainless steel elements subjected to predominantly static shear loads has been studied in recent years in plate girders [47][48][49][50][51]. These studies have been based upon experimental programs and numerical investigations on plate girders assembled primarily with slender web panels.…”

Shear Buckling Evaluation in Steel Plate Girders With Rigid End Posts Subjected to Elevated Temperatures

“…The material model recommended in Part 1-2 of EC3 was used for the steel behaviour not considering the strain-hardening. It is important to note that this numerical model was previously validated against experimental tests from literature (Reis et al, 2013).…”

“…The main goal of this work is to study the shear response of steel plate girders with rigid end posts in fire situation, assessing if the procedure from Part 1-5 of EC3 for the design at normal temperature may be adapted for fire design. For that purpose, a parametric numerical study was performed using a calibrated numerical model (Reis et al, 2013) in the FEM software SAFIR (Franssen, 2005). The influence of the geometric imperfections was taken into account considering the first buckling modes.…”