Finite Element Analysis on Shear-Lag Effect in Curved Continuous Box Girder with Corrugated Steel Webs

Abstract

The box-girder with corrugated steel webs is a new type of steel-concrete structure in China. Corrugated steel webs are used to replace the concrete webs of the traditional box girder. In this paper, the program of ANSYS is used to build the finite element model of a curved continuous box girder with corrugated steel webs. changing tendency, the rule of distribution, and characters of shear-lag effect are analyzed by comparison with the changing radius of curvature, width-span ratio, distance of webs, eccentric load, etc… ,which can influence the shear-lag effect of curved continuous box girder with corrugated steel webs. Finally, the effective distribution width of the box girder is analyzed. It is proven that curvature radius, width span ratio, and eccentric load are important influence factors and the suggestions on diminishing the shear-lag effect in the design of curved continuous box girder with corrugated steel webs are made. combinatorial structure using external pre-stressing force technology. The strong shear capacity of corrugated steel webs and the advantages of the high compressive strength of concrete are fully used. The internal forces in the structure are reasonable, and can be consistent with the demand of light-weight bridge structures compared to ordinary concrete box-girder bridges. In recent years, the application of corrugated steel webs to curved box-girder bridges is gaining more and more attention. For the curved continuous box-girder, considering the shear-lag effect would bring the coupling effect of bending, twisting, and shear-lag, which increases the complexity of calculation and analysis. The box girder in the longitudinal bending loads, due to shear lag-effect, will cause the width of wing plate to be reduced. There is still a lack of a reasonable calculation method for the effective distribution width of box-girders in the current bridge design specification in China. In this paper, the calculation models of curved continuous box-girders with corrugated steel webs are built by finite element method. The shear lag-effect of curved continuous box -girders with corrugated steel webs is analyzed. Changing tendency, the rule of distribution, and characters of shear-lag effect are analyzed by comparison with changing radius of curvature, width-span ratio, distance of webs, eccentric load, cross-section type of box girder, etc… FINITE ELEMENT MODEL In this paper, the large-scale common program of ANSYS is used to calculate the bridge as space structures. Due to the difference of the force characteristics and thickness of members, the box-girder with corrugated steel webs uses the two different types of modules to simulate the box-girder structure. Three-dimensional solid element SOLID65 is used to build the model of the