Shear capacity of H-shaped steel beam with randomly located pitting corrosion

Abstract

The H-shaped steel beam is one of the most commonly adopted steel members in building structures and industrial structures, including, bridges, ocean platforms, and industrial equipment. For the steel beams adopted in such structures, corrosion is inevitable, of which pitting corrosion is one of the most common types. The shear capacity of the webs of steel beam is an important performance factor utilized by steel structures. This study aims to reveal the influence of pitting corrosion on the shear capacity of corroded H-shaped steel beams. The relationship between shear capacity and mass loss ratio is the key research content. This study investigates the constant and randomly corroded depths. An analytical method for predicting the residual shear capacity of corroded steel beam is proposed. Results indicate that the proposed method has high accuracy in predicting the shear capacity of H-shaped steel beam with corroded web. The proposed analytical method is applicable for constant and random tw,c/ tw. The conclusions derived in this work are suitable for steel webs with normalized slenderness λs of less than 1 and can be applied to steel beams with different material strengths.