Local bearing capacity of steel beam webs with random pit corrosion

Abstract

H-shaped steel beams are widely used in architectural and industrial structures, such as bridges, offshore platforms, and industrial equipment. However, corrosion seems to be inevitable during the service of steel beams, with pitting being one of the most common corrosion types. The local bearing capacity of the steel girder web is one of the most important factors affecting the stability of steel structures. In this work, the stochastic finite element method is used to reveal the effect of pit corrosion on the local bearing capacity of the corroded H steel girder web, and the relationship between the local bearing capacity of the web and the mass loss rate is also discussed. The effects of specific and random corrosion positions on the local bearing capacity of webs, as well as random corrosion thickness and constant corrosion thickness on the web thickness, are analyzed. Moreover, the effect of the reduction coefficient on the probability distribution model is studied, and the variation of the reduction coefficient with the probability distribution model of corrosion thickness is revealed. The conclusions in this work can provide a theoretical analytical basis for the evaluation of the local bearing capacity of H-shaped steel beams with randomly corroded webs.