A Study on Flexural Ductility of Longitudinally Stiffened Plate Girders

The ultimate bending strength and flexural ductility performance of longitudinally stiffened plate girders fabricated with mild steel were investigated utilizing nonlinear incremental finite element analysis. AASHTO LRFD (2002) design specifications were reviewed for possible application of longitudinally stiffened plate girders as compact sections. In order to investigate compact section requirements for plate girders with longitudinal stiffeners in webs, a number of full-scale plate girders were modeled and analyzed up to the collapse under pure bending condition. It was found that the slenderness of sub panel of the webs, the stiffness of longitudinal stiffeners, and the slenderness of compression flanges are key parameters governing the flexural ductility of the plate girders. It was also found from finite element analysis that longitudinally stiffened plate girder sections can satisfy compact section requirements both in full plastic moment capacity and flexural ductility requirement. New design equations have been proposed for longitudinally stiffened plate girders to be treated as compact sections.