Post Buckling Behavior of Steel Plate Girder Panels Under Shear Loading

Abstract

Previously, the shear design of web and transverse stiffeners was based on the initial shear buckling in the web without the tension field action. The American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC) adopted post-buckling tension field strength into its specifications for stiffened interior web panels but exclude the post-buckling tension field action for the end web panel. In this study, a finite element method (FEM) analysis on an isolated panel confirms the view that post-buckling strength of steel plate girders is attributed to a non-uniform shear stress distribution along the boundary of the plates, varying from the critical stress in one corner up to the shear-yield stress in the tension corner with no need for any diagonal tension. It was also shown that the presence of flanges with bending strength does rise the shear capacity in the panel. However; light flanges give a slight increase in shear resistance without diagonal tension, but heavy flanges are shown to be capable of developing true diagonal tension, leading to a significant gain in total shear capacity.