Spatial Numerical Simulation of Locally Corroded Steel Plate Girder with Various End Panels

Field inspections indicate that corrosion damages steel bridge girders more at the ends as compared to the central region. Any significant loss of metal around the bearing region of the girder may cause an abrupt change of failure behavior and strength loss. The present numerical study is focused to evaluate the response of local corrosion damage at steel plate girder, with different end panels, that is, no end post, nonrigid, and rigid end post. Local corrosion damage was considered by reducing the bearings stiffener and adjacent web uniformly for a maximum damage depth of 100 mm with various corrosion damage levels (i.e., 75%, 50%, and 25%). The numerical analysis was performed on a computer package ABAQUS, using modified Riks analysis. A 4-node shell element (S4R) with reduced integration was used to simulate the model. The study concludes that local corrosion damage is more critical in nonrigid end post than in rigid end post. Furthermore, the steel girder with no end post is more susceptible to crippling failure due to local corrosion damage as compared to the other types of end post.

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