Numerical Investigation on Shear Deflection of Steel Welded I Sections with Varying Span to Depth Ratios

Abstract

Deflection of the steel I-sections is an important phenomenon that needs to be taken into account to ensure that the serviceability limit state criteria of the Australian Standards are met. The method that is widely used to calculate the deflection of steel I-sections is by the use of existing formulae that only accommodate the bending stiffness of the beams. A numerical investigation is performed in this study to find the contribution of shear effects in the final deflection of the Welded-Beams (WB) and Welded-Columns (WC). The numerical analyses were carried out in SAP2000 and numerical model was first validated using the experimental results of welded plate girders. The model was then used to analyse simply supported WB and WC sections under uniformly distributed load (UDL) with varying span lengths. The results of the numerical analyses are reported in this study which compare the mid-span deflection values from the simply supported deflection formula with the numerical model deflection values. The data acquired from the numerical analyses were used to establish a span to depth ratio for WB and WC sections below which the shear deflection becomes significant. The analysis of the results obtained from the numerical investigation suggests that a predication error begins to emerge in the result that is acquired from flexure deflection formulae at a certain span-depth ratio.