Recent research developments in stability and ductility of steel bridge structures: General Report

Abstract

Some ductility and strength researches of thin-walled steel bridge structures recently conducted at Nagoya University are summarized in this paper. The first part is on the investigations of the behavior of component plates, which are subjected to compression or shear. Both the monotonic and cyclic loading conditions have been considered. Then the studies of stub-columns under combined action of compression and bending are presented. The considered stub-columns are composed of stiffened and unstiffened box sections or pipe sections. For both the plates and stub-columns, empirical equations of strength and ductility have been developed. Based on the equations, a simple ductility evaluation method for thin-walled steel structures which involves a nonlinear pushover analysis and a definition of failure criterion is finally proposed. Moreover, some recent results of thin-walled structures through cyclic experimental and numerical studies are also included in this paper and are compared with the ductility estimations through the proposed simple method.