Effect of curvature and aspect ratio on shear resistance of unstiffened plates

•Effects of aspect ratio and curvature on the shear strength of plates are studied.•Theoretical relations are used to validating the out-coming numerical results.•Higher curvature makes elastic shear buckling more sensitive to slenderness ratio.•Effect of curvature on slender plates is greater than that of thick ones.•Increasing the aspect ratio, the elastic slenderness limit decreases.

In order to investigate the effects of aspect ratio, curvature, and slenderness on the shear behavior of flat and curved plates, a parametric study is conducted. The simulations were performed by ABAQUS software. Theoretical relations were used to verify the validity of the out-coming numerical results. Comparing the results obtained from the FEM analysis with those from AASHTO, it is observed that the AASHTO shear strength of plates with aspect ratios less than 1.71 is non-conservatively more than the FEM results. For instance, in a flat plate with an aspect ratio of one, the difference between these two values is close to 8%. On the contrary, as the aspect ratio increases, the values of shear strength obtained from AASHTO are less than those derived from FEM. The difference of these two values reaches up to 11% in the case of plates with larger values of curvature. This study reveals that the curvature is a parameter which severely affects the shear behavior of plates. It is suggested that for a proper estimation of the elastic shear behavior of curved plates, this parameter must be taken into account. It is also observed that decreasing the slenderness results in lower effect of the curvature on the shear strength. Unlike the elastic range, in the plastic range of slenderness parameter, the shear strength of flat and curved plates could be considered equal.