SHEAR BUCKLING COEFFICIENTS OF PLATE GIRDER WEB PANELS

In the design of plate girder web panels, it is required to evaluate a ccurately the elastic buckling strength under shear, whether or not th e post buckling strength is accounted for. Currently, elastic shear bu ckling coefficients of web panels stiffened by transverse intermediate stiffeners are determined by assuming conservatively that web panels are simply supported at the juncture between the flange and web. Howev er, depending upon the geometry and the properties of the plate girder , the elastically restrained support may behave rather closer to a cla mped support. In the present study, a series of numerical analyses bas ed on a three-dimensional finite element modeling is carried out to in vestigate the effects of the geometric parameters on the boundary cond itions at the juncture, and the resulting data are quantified in a sim ple design equation.