Effect of web opening on the ultimate capacity of steel plate girders under two points load

Abstract EN

The structural behavior of steel plate girders with web opening is investigated in this study.

An experimental and theoretical investigation of plate girders with circle and square openings in the web was conducted.

The experimental work included testing of seven plate girder specimens under two point loads.

Three specimens were tested to observe the influence of the circular web opening.

The influence of the presence of square web openings was studied by testing other three specimens.

The last one was tested without opening as a reference (control) specimen.

These specimens had the same dimensions.

The experimental results showed that the ultimate load capacity of the girders decreases with increasing the opening size, and the position of plastic hinge depends on the size of hole.

Three-dimensional nonlinear finite element analysis has been used to conduct the numerical investigation of the structural behavior of plate girders with web opening.

ANSYS (version 12.0) computer program was used in this study.

Four- nodes shell element (SHELL 181) was used to represent the steel plate.

The proposed finite element model has been used to carry out a parametric study to investigate the effects of two parameters ; web slenderness and flange stiffness ratios, on the ultimate load capacity of plate girders with circular web openings.