Finite element investigation of shear failure of lean duplex stainless steel plate girders

The use of duplex stainless steel material has gained popularity in the last two decades thanks to its nature that combines well the advantages of both austenitics and carbon steel materials. The duplex grades offer a combination of higher strength than austenitics in addition to a great majority of carbon steels with similar or superior corrosion resistance. However, high nickel prices have more recently led to a demand for lean duplexes with low nickel content, such as grade EN 1.4162. Wide-ranging work is needed to include the lean duplex grade EN 1.4162, into design standards such as EN 1993-1-4. Accordingly, a finite element modelling for full-size lean duplex stainless steel plate girders of non-rigid end stiffeners of Grade EN 1.4162 is presented in this paper. The paper is principally concerned with shear failure mechanism characteristics of this type of plate girders, which is not yet investigated. The ABAQUS 6.6 programme, as a finite element package, is used in the current work. The lean duplex stainless steel material is simulated here based on an accepted stainless steel material model available in the literature. A number of transversely stiffened I-section plate girders having equal depth of 1000 mm in span of 4 m is considered and parametric studies regarding flange width-to-web depth ratio, flange-to-web thickness ratio and web plate slenderness are carried out. However, new conclusions on shear strength of lean duplex stainless steel plate girders are presented.