STRESS CONCENTRATION DUE TO SHEAR LAG IN BOX GIRDER UNDER DISTRIBUTED LOAD

Abstract

Many studies on shear lag have been conducted. In recent years, the finite element method tends to be used for the study of shear lag. The finite element method is very powerful for engineering solutions. Nevertheless, a variety of stress concentration factors are found in the literature. Which is attributable to the fact that not many researches have carefully dealt with the finite element mesh and the modeling of the load while it is known that stress concentration is sensitive to the modelings. The shear-lag effect in a stiffened box girder under uniformly distributed load is studied by the there-dimensional finite element method in the present study. To be specific, parametric study regarding the geometry of a box girder is conducted numerically. The dependency of the shear-lag effect on the mesh and the modeling of the load are treated with much care. From the numerical results, the empirical formulas for evaluating the stress concentration under uniformly distributed load in the stiffened box girder are proposed.