Structural Behavior of Steel-Plate Girders in Shear: Experimental Study and Review of Current Design Principles

Abstract

This paper presents a novel experimental investigation into the pre- and postcritical behavior of steel-plate girders in shear. We have quantitatively scrutinized the deformation behavior of the web shear buckling using an optical measurement system. We reveal that the postcritical phase consists of two distinct stages, which refutes the belief of seemingly conflicting modeling approaches between the North American and the European design codes. We show that the first stage ends with the onset of a temporary instability of the main shear buckling that caps the girder’s shear resistance and corresponds to the shear capacity of the Basler model from the North American design code. We also show that the second stage, however, confirms the modeling approach of the Eurocode, because this stage exhibits (after stabilizing secondary buckling develops) a recovery of the shear resistance and terminates with the onset of a failure mechanism with plastic hinges in the flanges. While restoring the validity of the Basler model, we uncover the need for further experimental and numerical investigations to quantitatively assess the range of applicability of the Eurocode model.