GIRDERS WITH PROFILED AND STRUCTURED WEB - ONGOING RESEARCH - PART 1

In an ongoing research project, welded girders with I-section and thin "honey- comb" structured web will be investigated. A series of plate girders with different webs (flat, profiled or structured) are being modeled and analyzed under shear load. The numerical analysis will be based on nonlinear finite element method. Several plate girders were built for tests. The aim of the tests is to query if the structured web has a better buckling behavior than a normal flat web or even comparable corrugated web. Finally a comparison between numerical and experimental test results will be made. The paper describes former investigations on the shear capacity of the structured sheets, ongoing numerical analysis and experimental tests on global and local buckling.