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File: Introduction to Section 2

The Behaviour of Plates: Plates under other Load Conditions

Introduction to Section 2
Module SE1M93 Long Span Bridges
Unit 3 Box Girder Bridges
Section 2 The Behaviour of Plates: Plates under other Load Conditions
Study time 50 minutes

Aims of the Section:

The aims of the section are to understand the behaviour of plates under:

1. Shear

2. In-plane bending

3. Lateral loading

4. Combined in-plane stresses

Study Plan:

This section has a study time allocation of 50 minutes.

Learning Outcomes:

After studying this section you should be able to:

1. Explain the buckling behaviour of plates in shear

2. Compare the buckling behaviour of plates in shear and plates in compression

3. Describe the buckling characteristics of a plate under in-plane bending

4. Explain the behaviour of panels under lateral loading

5. Describe the characteristics of plates under combined in-plane stresses

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File: Plates in Shear

The Behaviour of Plates: Plates under other Load Conditions

Plates in Shear
Buckling of Plates in Shear

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Section 2 (Unit 3) Page 2 of 10

Figure 3.17 shows a plate panel loaded by in-plane shear along its edges. A perfect elastic plate
will, as for compression, carry load by in-plane action alone prior to reaching its elastic critical
stress. The plate will distort in-plane with stretching of one diagonal and shortening of the other
creating orthogonal tension and compression stresses. It is the compressive component of the
stress state that causes buckling and hence the buckling mode is of a diagonal form as shown in
the figure.

Figure 3.17. Plate panel loaded by in-plane shear along its edges

The single buckle shown occurs in a square plate but, like a plate in compression, the number of
waves varies with the aspect ratio. Unlike the compression case, however, the critical buckling
coefficient and hence load is significantly affected by aspect ratio.

The critical buckling expression can be approximated by the equation

for b/a < 1

This gives a value of k of 9.34 for a square plate. The true expression is discontinuous with
wave number.

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Section 2 (Unit 3) Page 3 of 10

Figure 3.18. Critical buckling coefficient k against a/b

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File: A Comparison between Plates in Shear and Plates in Compression

The Behaviour of Plates: Plates under other Load Conditions

A Comparison between Plates in Shear and Plates in Compression

The higher value compared with the value of 4 for compression reflects the presence of the
tensile stresses inherent in the loading. The consequence of this is that plates can be designed
with a higher slenderness in shear compared with compression and still be economic. This can
be seen by comparing the slenderness values at which the critical stress and yield stress are
equal (the point of maximum imperfection sensitivity). The yield stress in shear is

This can be appreciated from the governing Mises yield equation

Therefore by equating the shear yield stress to the critical buckling stress with a k value of 9.34
for the same material values as used previously:

This gives b/t = 111 compared with the value of 55 for compression.

A typical range of slenderness for the design of a panel in shear is with the
stockier panels being used in the presence of combined compression and the more slender
panels being used in the presence of tension.

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File: Pre- and Post-Buckling Behaviour

The Behaviour of Plates: Plates under other Load Conditions

Pre- and Post-Buckling Behaviour

A perfect elastic plate in shear undergoes two phases of behaviour. The first, pre-buckling,
corresponds to in-plane response where diagonal tensile and compressive contributions are
equal. The second occurs after buckling where the compressive stresses stabilise and begin to
fall and the tensile stresses continue to increase, in principle up to the yield value.

This post-buckling behaviour can be thought of as a band of diagonal tension, the vertically

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Section 2 (Unit 3) Page 4 of 10

resolved component of which gives the panel additional shear capability. This behaviour leads to
a simplified design process for webs called tension field design. The diagonal band is shown
below in Figure 3.19.

Figure 3.19. Representation of a band of diagonal tension in a plate subjected to shear

Where the panel is adjacent to a flange or other panel the tensile stresses can anchor off the
boundary increasing this contribution to the capacity. A restrained panel will have a strength
close to the shear yield strength, even for very slender panels and will be effectively
imperfection insensitive. In fact the tension field response means that all shear panels have a
low imperfection sensitivity.

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File: Strength Curves

The Behaviour of Plates: Plates under other Load Conditions

Strength Curves

Figure 3.20 shows the shear strength curves in BS5400 Part 3 (Figure 22), which illustrates the
low sensitivity of strength to slenderness when the panel is restrained. Because the critical
buckling coefficient is significantly affected by the aspect ratio, the latter also has an important
effect on the collapse stress and the code therefore presents different curves for different
aspect ratios.

This contrasts with the code curves for compression, which were independent of aspect ratio.
The value kq is multiplied by the shear yield stress to obtain the collapse shear stress in the
code, which is assumed to act uniformly down the panel. However, an idealised tension field
approach rather than a panel strength approach is used in the code where the panel extends for
the full depth of the web and there are no longitudinal stiffeners in the flange.

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Section 2 (Unit 3) Page 5 of 10

Figure 3.20. Shear strength curves in BS5400 Part 3

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File: Plates under In-Plane Bending

The Behaviour of Plates: Plates under other Load Conditions

Plates under In-Plane Bending
Buckling Behaviour

The buckling coefficient for a plate in bending is very significantly influenced by the fact that
half (in linear response) of the load is applied in tension. Figure 3.21 below shows the resulting
buckling mode for such a plate and it can be envisaged that the plate would buckle at a stress
equivalent to the buckling stress of a stockier compression plate i.e. an effective width
appreciable less than the breadth of the actual plate.

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Section 2 (Unit 3) Page 6 of 10

Figure 3.21. Buckling mode of a plate subjected to in-plane bending

In fact the k value for a plate in equal bending is 23.9 and, like the compression plate, has
curves with minima which are independent of the aspect ratio although these minima occur at
aspect ratios somewhat less than in compression.

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File: Post-Buckling Behaviour

The Behaviour of Plates: Plates under other Load Conditions

Post-Buckling Behaviour

Again because of the presence of the tension, plate behaviour in bending is somewhat less
sensitive to imperfection and collapse loads, because of the variation of k with aspect ratio, are
also insensitive to aspect ratio.

One further important phenomenon occurs in a plate whose edges are effectively held straight
during the buckling response. As for shear, as the plate deflects, the compressive stresses tend
to stabilise and decline while the tensile stresses continue to increase. The neutral axis
therefore shifts towards the compression side of the panel as the moment increases.

While only stocky panels will reach the in-plane plastic moment capacity MP, panels with
intermediate slenderness, as high as b/t values of 100 and beyond, will exceed the in-plane
yield moment value My. This redistribution of stress towards a plastic type distribution can be
seen below in Figure 3.22.

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Section 2 (Unit 3) Page 7 of 10

Figure 3.22. Plastic stresses in a plate under in-plane bending

In BS5400 Part 3, the strength of a panel in bending is reference to the yield stress value as for
compression by the ultimate load coefficient Kb Figure 3.20 (BS5400 Figure 22). This is
referenced to a linear stress distribution. In order to reflect the above redistribution and in
order to provide strengths above My, the kb values increase above 1.0 to reflect the section
shape factor.

Figure 3.23. Ultimate load coefficient kb vs. column slenderness

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File: Panels under Lateral Loading

The Behaviour of Plates: Plates under other Load Conditions

Panels under Lateral Loading

The concept of critical buckling has no relevance to panels loaded exclusively by lateral rather

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Section 2 (Unit 3) Page 8 of 10

than in-plane loading.

As the lateral load is applied, the panel will increasingly deflect out of plane and out-of-plane
moments will increase. As large deflection behaviour occurs, membrane tensions will begin to
resist increased deflection and may become very large, particularly if they can anchor off the
boundaries.

Behaviour will be limited by these membrane tensions reaching yield and hence the panel
collapse load is imperfection insensitive. Of course, the significant deflections caused by the
lateral loading could have a major effect on the stability of the plate under any coincident in-
plane destabilising stress components as they would essentially have the effect of large
imperfections.

However, while relevant to, for example, the design of ship hulls, the only significant design
case where lateral loading could be relevant to the element design in a bridge is for wheel
loading on an orthotropic bridge deck. Even in this case BS5400 ignores the lateral load in the
context of the design of the flange plate panels, only making an allowance for it in terms of an
added in-plane stress contributing to the panel stress for considering yield in terms of
serviceability.

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File: Plates under Combined In-Plane Stresses

The Behaviour of Plates: Plates under other Load Conditions

Plates under Combined In-Plane Stresses
Buckling Behaviour

The influence of plate slenderness and aspect ratio on the behaviour of a plate panel loaded in a
combined stress state, e.g. uni-axial compression and shear, reflects the influence they exert on
the individual load cases. In addition, there is an interaction between the individual buckling
modes that might enhance or detract from the collapse loads under the individual stress
components essentially dependent on whether the modes from the individual components are in
sympathy.

The elastic critical buckling interaction between bi-axial compression, bending and shear is
given below:

where and are the applied compressive stress in the x-direction, the y-direction,
the applied bending stress and the applied shear respectively and the ,cr vales are the
corresponding critical stresses for the panel for each individual type of loading.

This shows that compression has the greatest influence on interactive buckling while bending
and shear have a lower influence. It also shows the effect of bi-axial compression in reducing
the elastic critical buckling load.

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Section 2 (Unit 3) Page 9 of 10

File: Ultimate Collapse Strength

The Behaviour of Plates: Plates under other Load Conditions

Ultimate Collapse Strength

No exact interaction equation exists for the ultimate collapse strength of a panel under a
combined stress state.

Combined Compression/Tension and Shear

Figure 3.24 below illustrates the behaviour by showing the collapse stress interaction diagram
for combined compression / tension and shear.

For a stocky panel which exhibits no buckling the response follows the Mises yield curve and is
circular in form. It can be seen that the tensile stresses have a beneficial effect on shear
buckling for high levels of shear and low levels of tension while for high levels of tension,
buckling has no influence even for modest levels of shear and slender panels and the yield
surface is again reached.

For slender panels and high levels of compression it can also be seen that shear has little
influence until the levels of shear approach around 60% of the shear collapse values.

Figure 3.24. Collapse stress interaction diagram for combined compression / tension and shear

Combined Bending and Shear

Figure 3.25 shows the corresponding diagram for bending moment and shear. There is little
influence of shear on buckling behaviour for shear values less than about 50% of shear yield
and little influence of bending on buckling behaviour for bending values less than about 40% of
Mu. In this diagram Mu is the fully plastic collapse moment.

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Section 2 (Unit 3) Page 10 of 10

Figure 3.25. Collapse stress interaction diagram for bending moment and shear

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File: Interaction Equation - BS5400 Part 3

The Behaviour of Plates: Plates under other Load Conditions

Interaction Equation - BS5400 Part 3

An empirical curve fitting is used in BS5400 Part 3 to represent these interaction diagrams to
relate the strength under individual stresses to the combined stress state. This interaction
equation was based on that for critical buckling defined above. The equation is:

(Section 9.11.4.4)

where kc are the appropriate values using the value of b transverse to the applied direct stress.

Curve 3 of Figure 3.20 (BS5400 Figure 22) for kc is used with the other dimension of the panel
if in either case it leads to a higher value of kc. The code indicates that an individual square
term should be taken as negative enhancing the buckling capacity if one of the stresses is
tensile but it would seem to be logical in this case to remove the kc term from the appropriate
expression as it is potentially non-conservative otherwise.

The code also includes a parameter that allows for stress shedding in this equation. This is
discussed later in the context of longitudinally stiffened web design.

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