Construction and Steel Structure

Biography

Biography: Mostafa Fahmi Hassanein

Abstract

This paper provides the recent advances related to the shear strength and behaviour of bridge girders with steel corrugated webs. The real behaviour at the juncture between the corrugated web and flanges of bridge girders is studied using elastic bifurcation buckling analyses using ABAQUS software. The results obviously indicated that when the flanges are rigid enough ( ), the girder segments exhibit shear failure mechanisms and the realistic support condition at the juncture is nearly fixed. Hence, a new interactive shear buckling strength formula is proposed for the case of fixed juncture. The shear strength of bridge girders with corrugated webs (BGCWs) using the realistic initial imperfection amplitudes is investigated. The models are well verified using available experimental results. It is found that stocky corrugated webs cannot practically reach the yield shear strength. However, among the strengths using the proposed interactive shear buckling strength formula, the one adopting Sause and Braxtan equation is found to be the most suitable. On the other hand, the existing literature on bridge girders with steel corrugated webs (BGCWs) is focused on prismatic girders; i.e. with constant depth. To the authors’ best knowledge, no work has been done on the shear stability of tapered BGCWs although they have been increasingly used in bridges in recent years. Webs in different typologies of tapered girders with steel corrugated webs are investigated. Accordingly, the critical shear buckling stress ( ) of the corrugated webs of tapered BGCWs is evaluated and it is found that predicting values for the tapered webs based on prismatic web calculations is not accurate. Therefore, critical buckling stresses for the tapered webs are proposed based on the stresses of prismatic webs, with different equation for each typology. The paper is, then, extended to investigate the nonlinear shear strengths of the BGCWs. The available design shear strength formulas for prismatic girders are compared with the FE shear strengths of the tapered BGCWs. Based on these comparisons, design strengths for different tapered BGCWs cases are suggested.