Abstract:
|
Although steel girders have been u
sed for many years, new gener
ation of optimized steel
girders is developed by the advances in structural and fabricat
ion technology. Girders with
corrugated webs are used in bridge
s as an efficient alternative
to conventional girders with flat
stiffened webs, It was also found that, the vertically corrugat
ed girders had a 10.6% reduction
in weight when compared with the beam with flat web.[1]
Advantages Economical design of steel girders normally requires
thin webs. The use of
corrugated webs is a possible wa
y of achieving adequate out-of-
plane stiffness without using
stiffeners. Particularly in bri
dge girders with corrugated webs
(BGCWs), the corrugated webs
are the main elements for bearing the shear forces. Instead of
prismatic BGCWs, tapered
BGCWs are currently used mainly due to their structural efficie
ncy, providing at the same time
aesthetical appearance.
Available literature shows that tapered BGCWs may be classified
into four typologies. Among
these typologies, Case I and Case II are the most common cases
appearing commonly near to
the intermediate supports of continuous bridges.
Accordingly, in this thesis, the finite element (FE) method is
employed to investigate the
inelastic behaviour of tapered BGCWs of Case I and Case II, fol
lowing to the fundamental
behaviour of such girders published recently by Hassanein et al
[6].
The thesis seeks, firstly, considering initial imperfection amp
litudes of
200
/
1
w
h
. Accordingly,
with euro code 3 part 1-5, annex D [12],
1
w
h
is the height of the long vertical edge of the web
panel, it investigates the effect of the aspect ratio of the we
b panels, different flange inclination
angles and different
web thickness.
Finally, the thesis checks previously proposed design model usi
ng the results of the generated
parametric studies. Overall, the outcomes of this study are exp
ected to provide more insight
into the behaviour of tapered BGCWs and enable accurate predict
ion of the shear capacity of
this special type of BGCWs. |