Jesus Ortega Ortega

Shear buckling strength of a web surrounded by corroded vertical stiffeners.

Iwasaki Eiji

Aged structures are a reality that most of developed countries are facing nowadays. For this reason, this paper focuses on the research of web’s shear buckling resistance in a plate girder with one sided two stiffeners corroded by time. Using the Finite Element Method and a structural analysis software, create different models of the plate girder, reducing stiffeners’ thickness, stiffeners height and find out the shear strength of the web plate. 
The present research was carried out with a certain specific conditions in the plate girder and its stiffeners, in other words, it is not a general model. The conditions of the model are described further and the initial conditions of the element as well. 
Generally speaking, steel structures are prone to corrode, in this research two stiffeners are located in the center of the plate girder. These stiffeners are installed in order to resist the buckling of the web. However, when their cross section is reduced due to the corrosion, the stress' distribution changes in the structure. According to the Basler's experiments and research the most important part to focus will be the right side stiffener, due to the tension field created in the web plate. Subsequently, using the FEM the cross section of the right side stiffener will be reduced from the lower flange to the upper flange with the purpose to evaluate the resistance of the shear buckling of the web plate. The expected results will show different values of shear buckling strength of the elements as the cross section of the right side stiffener is decreasing. 
The results obtained will be shown graphically and there will be comparisons between different models to easily understand the loss of shear strength in the web plate by corrosion and realize how important it is to consider the structural maintenance.