ULTIMATE STRENGTH ANALYSIS OF STUB GIRDERS

This paper is on the determination of the ultimate load-carrying capac ity of stub girders. Two different methods are presented for this purp ose. In the first method, the stub girder is modeled as a vierendeel t russ girder. Based on an assumed collapse mechanism, shear force distr ibution between the top and bottom chords proportioned according to th e shear and flexural stiffnesses and point of contraflexure at the mid length of opening, an explicit expression to calculate the ultimate lo ad is derived. The second method uses the finite-element software pack age ABAQUS for the nonlinear analyses of idealized two-dimensional stu b girder models. The methods furnish results that are in reasonable ag reement with experimental results, for girders in which the premature failure of shear connectors, local buckling of stubs and the main gird er, and the longitudinal shear failure are prevented.