Ultimate shear behavior of web panels of HSB800 plate girders

• Ultimate shear behavior of HSB800 plate girder web panels was investigated through non-linear finite element analysis.
• The stress–strain curve of HSB800 steel was idealized with multi-linear model and bi-linear model.
• The two material models did not exhibit any meaningful difference in the overall ultimate shear behavior.
• It was found that shear design equations developed for mild steels needed to be calibrated for HSB800 steel.
• A new shear design equation was suggested for HSB800 steel.

Shear design equations for steel plate girders adopted in many steel design codes were based on classical failure theories for web panels that were fundamentally developed for mild steels. The most salient characteristic of mild steels is that they exhibit a clear yield point followed by the so-called yield plateau in the stress–strain curve. HSB800, which is a high-strength steel recently developed in Korea, neither has a clear yield point nor the yield plateau. This study investigated the ultimate shear behavior of web panels of HSB800 plate girders through nonlinear finite element analysis. Two different stress–strain models were examined for the material nonlinear analysis: bi-linear model and multi-linear model. It was found that the two material models exhibited similar ultimate shear behaviors. The FEA results indicated that existing design equations developed for mild steel are not directly applicable to HSB800. A new shear design equation was developed for HSB800 plate girders from the FEA results using bi-linear model.