Structural Performance of Strengthened Steel Girders with Web Openings under Shear Forces

Abstract

The use of Steel Beams with Web Openings (SBWOs) such as industrial and multistoried buildings has evicted to be wide in recent times. The existing study goals to examine the structural performance of steel beams with web openings in the shear zones and detect the chance of using carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) epoxy laminates for strengthening process. The purpose was to determine the maximum load behavior, deflection, distribution of stresses and strains along the beams' length. The shapes, numbers of web openings where the openings area is constant for all beams, places and thickness of CFRP for strengthening beams were the main parameters. The behavior of ten steel beams which contain beams with opening, beams without openings and beams strengthened with different forms were specified by a Finite Element Model (FEM). Verifications of FEM with the results of three published researches and an experimental program performed in the current work for four beams; control beam where there is without openings and number of three beams with web openings. The finite element results display a good agreement with the analogical values detected in the experiments and three published researches results. The results displayed that the beam with circular openings is better than those with rectangular openings and opening height is an important parameter. The CFRP is a right strengthening selection in the shear and tension zone. Increased CFRP thickness is comparatively useless, where most of the time, the failure is due to de-bonding (adhesive material) not rupture in CFRP laminates.