Inelastic Buckling Behavior of Steel H-Piles with Localized Severe Corrosion

Abstract

This paper presents the findings of an experimental and analytical research study that was conducted to evaluate the buckling behavior of steel bridge piles with localized severe section loss. Seven full-scale H-piles with different degrees of simulated corrosion were tested under axial compression. A nonlinear, three-dimensional (3D), finite-element model was developed to predict the inelastic buckling behavior of corroded piles under axial compression loading. The model was validated by comparison with the experimental results. The validated model was used to conduct a parametric study. Six parameters were investigated: (1) pile slenderness, (2) reduction of the flange thickness, (3) reduction of the web thickness, (4) location of the corroded region, (5) extent of the corroded region, and (6) magnitude of the residual stresses. The results indicate that the reduction of the flange thickness is the most significant factor affecting the inelastic buckling behavior. The pile slenderness and the magnitude of the residual stresses affected only the capacity of piles for which global buckling was the dominant failure mode. The experimental and numerical results were compared to three existing design methods to evaluate the suitability of the current design specifications for predicting the axial capacity of steel compression members with localized corrosion.