Shear response of lean duplex stainless steel plate girders

Abstract

Carbon steel plate girders have been used on a large scale in the building industry. Nowadays, Lean Duplex Stainless Steel (LDSS) plate girders are gaining popularity as they possess greater strength and are more impervious to corrosion than those that are constructed from carbon steel. Regardless of their popularity, there is very limited information with regards to their shear behavior. In this paper, the non-linear finite element analysis was employed to investigate the shear behavior of LDSS plate girders. Parameters considered were the web thickness, the flange width, and the girders aspect ratio. The analysis revealed that although the shear behavior of the LDSS girders was no different from that of carbon steel plate girders, it had obviously been affected by the non-linearity of the material. Furthermore, the selected parameters were found to pronounce effect on the shear capacity of the LDSS girders. That is, the shear capacity increased considerably with web thickness, and increased slightly with flange width. However, it was reduced as the aspect ratio increased. Comparisons between the finite element analysis failure loads and those predicted by the current European Code of Practice revealed that the latter underestimated the shear strength of the LDSS plate girders.