9 ‘THE ANNALS OF “DUNAREA DE JOS” UNIVERSITY OF GALATI FASCICLE X APPLIED MECHANICS, ISSN 1221-4612 72004 Ultimate Strength of Plate Girders in Shear V. Daniel Olaru, Mihail Nicolau, Alina Dimache and Mircea Modiga “Dunarea de Jos” University of Galati : ABSTRACT Basie concepts and approaches related to the ultimate shear strength are briefly re- viewed and a FEM-based tool is presented and advocated as useful for further studies. To investigate the plastic/collapse behaviour of plate girders in shear. especially when their geometry is complicated due t0 the presence of holes and stiffeners ore can anly. uuse nonlinear elasto-plastic large deflection FEA. The dedicated computer cade pre- sented herein Is a useful (oo! for the structural analyst, as well as for the rational de- sign specialist, since the pre- and post-processing tasks as well as the calibration on experimental results are generally acknowledged as too time consuming. 1. Introduction Shear collapse of deep web plates is one of the fundamental failure modes in large thin-walled structures. In general, this type of collapse is more likely to occur near the plate girders supports Actual plate girders are complex members, there- fore with complicated structural behaviour, due to the presence of web holes and stiffeners, as de- Fig.1. In this paper however, we focus on the discussion of concepts rather than parametric study of ultimate shear strength. Therefore, we shail consider only the fundamental plate girder model, ie, the plate girder member between two consecutive vertical stiffeners, which are consid ered rigid enough to prevent any local failure of the web and/or flange plates at their location. As a matter of fact, even shipped vertical stiffeners (ie. not welded to the flanges), of flat-bar cross- section, typical in reany marine structures, were found to have enough effectiveness as panel break- ers, even in post-ultimate strength range (Vanagi- hhara etal, 2002), Assuming 2 pure shear stress state in the web plate, according to the classical theory of elasticity, the principal membrane stresses 0, and o, are equal in absolute value and their directions form an angle of 45° with the longitudinal axis of the web panel. Until Basler (1961) proposed new design rules, the ctitical load, calculated according to the classical theory of elastic stability was considered the limit state in civil engineering practice Im the aircraft design, however, where the para mount design is to minimize the weight of the structure, the post-buckling strength of plate gird= ers in’shear was witized since the beginning of the last century, The post-buekling strength is evalu ated based on the fension field concept. After buck- fing, the value of the compressive principal stress ©, which is perpendicular to the waves of buck- ling, cannot increase significantly with the shear load, whereas the tensile principal stress continues to grows and thus to resist the post-buckling shear load, hence the name of tension field For extremely thin (ie. slender) web plates this effect was indeed proved by experiments and pro- sented by many authors, including Timoshenko (0961) and used in deriving analytical formutae for calculation of ultimate shear force as a sum of the “yeam action” (i.e, pré-buckling shear force) and 39.FASCICLE X THE ANNALS OF “DUNAREA DE JOS" UNIVERSITY OF GALATI sion field action” (i.e. post-buckling shear force). In civil or marine engineering however, the steel gitders have higher modulvs of elasticity and hence higher buckling strengib and usually, despite some tendencies of liberal design, are of intermedi- ate slendemess. The first to develop new theories for steel plate girders was Basler (1961) (his for- mule form the basis of American standards). Many other sciemtists such as Fujii (1967) and mote recently Lee and Yoo (1999) and Hoghind (1997) improved the approach; the latter has inves- tigated analytically and experimentally aluminium and steel girdets and his theory “rotated stress field method” is adopted in Eurocode 3 for steel and Eurocode 9 for aluminium alloy structures ‘Such theories, however, tacitly assume that the stress state remains 2 plane stress, even after buck~ ling, The actual behaviour is more complicated because of the local plate bending at the waves of buckling, which implies a completely different sate of stress, The nontinear elasto-plastic analyses based on FEM can cope with such behaviour and this paper presents typical results obtained for a classical plate girder specimen. The in-house eods computer code FEMUS employed hercin is actually a variant of the well known code ULSAS (e.g. Yao et al., 1993) using 4-node isoparametric bilinear degener- ated shell elements with reduced integration (Toi et al, 1986), considering both material and geometric nonlinearities. The elasto-plastic large deflection analysis performed by this powerful tool is based 0 the following procedur ‘+The virtual work equation is formulated in terms of the updated Green strain increments and the updated Kirchhoff stress increments After each incremental step, the Kirchhoff stress increments ate transformed into the Jaumann sttess increments, fo account for large rotations of elements. ‘©The plastic flow theory (Prandtl-Reuss) is ape plied considering von Mises yield function as a plastic potemtiat : +The material is assumed to follow the combined (aw ofkinematie and isotropic hardening, © The ariiicial stiffness proposed by Kanok~ Nukulchai is introduced into the element stiff> ‘ness matrix to eliminate the singularity due to in- plane rotation of the element, ‘+ The artificial stiffness proposed by Flanagan and Belytschko is introduced in the element stiffness matrix to prevent hourglass mode instability ‘Thus, a structural analyst’s rather then designer’s approach is employed here, to reveal the static col- lapse behaviour of plate girders in shear and to advo- cate the use of FEMUS to further studies, including cyclic loading and corresponding behaviour (buckled and flat shapes of the web plate alternate during the eyelic loading, hence the term “breathing”), Subse- quent developments of FEMUS will also cope with the generation of complicated model such as those in Fig.1, because the final goal of this study is to develop efficient ISUM (Olaru, 2002) web elements, Fig.1 Typical design of plate girders in ship double-bottom structures s|THE ANNALS OF “DUNAREA DE JOS” UNIVERSITY OF GALATI FASCICLE X 2. Analytical methods to predict ultimate shear strength of plate girders ‘The most known existing analytical methods are due to Basler (1961), Fujii (1967), Lee and Yoo (1999) and Héglund (1997). All these theories as sume a web panel between (wo consecutive vertical stiffeners in pure shear stress state, 2.1 Elastic buckling strength in pure shear stress ‘The elastic buckling strength in Basler’s =p- proach is calculated considering the web panel simply supported on all sides. According Ti- moshenko (1959): 4 Ee (1,) nee] ° elastic buckling shear stress of web panel ,,_ + web plate thickness 6, + web plate heigit E + Young's modulus v= Poisson's ratio 4k, > shear buckling coefficient Er 3490 gat cs @ 1.1, : web panel aspect ratio. Fujii, on the other hand, recommends fixed con- dition for the web sides along the flanges. The shear buckling coefficient for this simple-fixed condition, ie. web panel simply supported at verti- ‘cal stiffeners and fixed at flanges, is given in graphical form by Fujii (1967) and as regression formula derived by Bulson (1970), used in the study of Lee et al. (1996): In fact, the actual support condition at the web edges along the flanges is neither simple support, nor fixed support, but something in between. Based fon over 300 numerical experiments, two simple equations have been proposed by Lee et al. (196): where &, and ky are the same as given above. 2.2. Post-buckting strength in shear In all existing theories, assumptions are-made upon the size of the tension ficld region as well as upon its rotation, because at collapse the angle be- tween the tensile principal stress and the longitu: nal side of the web panel is in general smaller than 45° and also different to the angle of the diagonal (Fujii, 1967). Basler assumes ultimate shear force ¥, as.a sum of the elastic shear buckling force, ¥. and the contribution of tension field action, V- Flange rigidity is neglected and he postulates that the inclination of tension field at ultimate shear load is such that maximises its shear component: wy, where Vy= tayAy + fully plastic shear force thx + shear yield stress Au he ly 5 web crossesectional area Fujii presented an improved theory, considering flange rigidity and introduced three different col- lapse modes depending on the web plate slender- niess. The eritetion for ultimate strength is not only yielding of web plate but also a plastic mechanism of flanges, formed by plastic hinges at both ends supported by vertical stiffeners and at mid-span For example, in partial tension field iF +O+ev,) 0-2, @ where ¥,,= feelty and ©: influence of flangeFASCICLE X THE ANNALS OF “DUNAREA DE JOS” UNIVERSITY OF GALATI » flange thickness flange cross-sectional area Gy = yield stress of flange Gur yield stress of web Fujii (1967) gives further important discussions to properly use his set of formulae for the plate sirder design under specified conditions as well as, ‘comparisons with experimental results and Basler's formula. It must be noted that Fuji condition, Le. t4y = Oy) /2. Although the same notation for the shear yield stress and fully plastic shear force is used above, itis important to keep in mind this essential difference between Fujii and Basler, Inthe latter case, ty =p 43 employs Tresea yield 3. Experimental setups Usual experimental setups for ultimate strength fn shear tests create a cantitever condition (e.g. Inoue, 1996) or a three-point-bending condition (e.g, Lee and Yoo, 1999), as sketched in Fig.2, the original setup employed by Basler (1961) being also shown. Cantilever — Three-point bending : Basler Such loading conditions, however, have the dis- advantage that the relative deflection of the pane! ends (ie. beam deflection w) is contributed both by shear forces and bending moments. The deconpo- sition of shear and bending modes is possible by using the concept of discrete shear gap proposed bby Bletzinger et al. (2000) 049,” 2 An = ya, @ where” denotes the left end and ™ the right end of the test web panel and a, is its length. ‘Thus, average stress ~ average strain curves ine stead of load — deflection curves will better illus- ‘wate the behaviour in shear; the average shear strain is the diserete shear gap divided toa, If the models could be loaded in fixed-end beam condition, as shown in Fig.3, then pure shear con- dition is achieved at the central part of the span ‘with reduced bending effects. oS og" Fig3 FEA model proposed herein for fixed-end beam in shear numerical experiment Table 1_Boundary conditions on edges in Fig.3 x ‘Test Section Fig.2 Experimental setups restrained dof = the applied forced displacement Ci: constant degree of freedom imposed on respective edgesTHE ANNALS OF “DUNAREA DE JOS” UNIVERSITY OF GALATI FASCICLE X FEM models, i.e. numerical experiments, can are restrained against lateral displacement. ‘easily realize such condition, whereas physical ex- To consider the continuity of bottom plating, periments can hardly cope with fixed ends, There- flange edges arc kept straight in y-direction and fore, the model for FEA depicted in Fig.3 is pro- symmetry conditions are imposed along them. posed in this paper, to simplify the analysis of plate Yield stress measured for flange and web plates girder elements in shear and, moreover, to gain was used. When the material is mild steel, bilinear ‘more insight on their overall behaviour. {idealisation of stress-strain curve is employed in ‘Web edges | and 4 are simply supported along 2- FEA, setting £, as 0.1% of Young's modulus, in axis, neglecting the restraint offered by intersecting strain hardening range. girders, The web edges at intersection with flanges A predecessor of this modelling was proposed by ae oe ae 4 er eee i ask a ash i | aah tf cap ested odd Zoosk 2 oosh mi 02 02 by i bal o4 Basior Go-T1 4 ork 4 timate srenghs I intalyieaing 9 oh ee brriiirii o 05 1 15 @ 28 5 a5 4 ores 45 67 6 9 10 whe Outotlana detects Ime] Fig.4 FEA results for Basler’s test shear girder G6-TI: stress — deflection curves deflection x3 deflection x3 plot at mark a plot at mark 5 plot at ultimate strength Fig.5 FEA results for Basler's tes: shear girder (36-11: deformation and spread of yielding plots 6FASCICLE X THE ANNALS OF “DUNAREA DE JOS" UNIVERSITY OF GALATI lara et ai (2001) and the influence of continuous plating flange of double-bottomtlike plate girders ‘vas found minimal, as far as predominant shear is, concerned. Therefore, we propose to keep the spe- cial boundary conditions applied to longitudinal edges, which also ensure a significant reduction in total number of dofs, i.c. computational effort. This new FEA modelling will enable studies on the ine fluence of initial deflection upon the buckling and collapse behaviour in shear of various girders 4. Conclusions As seen in Fig4, the behaviour of deep plate gird- 1s in. shear exhibits considerable postbuckling strength, Thus, the term “critical” forthe shear stress corresponding to the buckling shear strength is no longer justified and the allowable stress should be calculated as a fraction of the ultimate strength. This finding is not new, it was also observed in physical experiments (Basler, 1961, Lee and Yoo, 1996), The FEA approach, hawover, is by far less expensive and can offer many details conceming the overall and local behaviour of the web plate or flange plates, compared to physical tests, despite the well known difficulties raised by the nonlinear approach, ic. by both geometrical and material nonlinearities. In ad- dition, such calculations offer mote realistic insight compared to the eigenvalue finite element solution. Such dedicated computer codes can be developed and should prove useful for further types of related studies, such as web breathing under cyclic loading or the calculation of buckling strength of stiffened andior perforated web plates. In the latter cases, to be tackled in the future, the existing analytical for- rmulae fail to give more than an inexact, first-shot result, Subsequent reports will include detailed stud- ‘eS on the influence of vertical or horizontal stffen- ets, web cut-outs and FEMUS ean offer more re- sults, such as principal stress distribution over the buckled web plate. An important observation is the good agreement between the buckling strength calculated based on ‘modified buckling coefficient proposed by Lec ct al (1996) and that observed in the curve in Fig 4. As for the limit states, the designer would con- sider, say 0.5 on the vertical axis in Fig as ultimate slrengih from practical reasons point of view. The stryctural analyst however, seeks the whole load- deflection behaviour, including ductility. oA 5. Acknowledgements ‘This version of the in-house computer code em Ployed herein is a variant developed by the first an- thor, as a doctor student, under the supervision of Prof. Masahiko Fujikubo (Hiroshima University), tunder the authority of Prof. Tetsuya Yao (Osaka Uni- versity), the creator of the original, world-wide known, ULSAS code. Additional guidance and ass tance in programming offered by Dr. Daisuke Yanagi- bara is gratefally acknowledged. 6, References Abita Y, Full T (1968) On dtmate Srength of Plate Gxdor, Japan Shipuiling and Marine Engines, May. P16. 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