Influence of flange strength on transversally stiffened girders subjected to patch loading

• In this paper, the validity of a previously presented mechanical model is extended.
• This model is useful for the case of steel girders with closely spaced stiffeners.
• The results show that for hybrid girders, the mechanical model should be corrected.
• The obtained results are satisfactorily corrected in terms of the safety margin.

In this paper, a mechanical model aimed at predicting the ultimate load capacity of transversally stiffened steel plate girders subjected to patch loading is revisited. This mechanical model gives accurate results for homogeneous steel plate girders (identical yield strength for web and flanges) but it is found that for the case of hybrid girders (fyf/fyw), certain correction factors must be added for maintaining the same level of accuracy. The provided correction is inferred empirically from a series of experimentally calibrated numerical results and the resulting formulae are expressed in accordance with the EN1993-1-5 procedure.