New analytical approach for predicting the plastic shear resistance of the panel zone in steel joints

This paper presents a new analytical approach for predicting the plastic resistance of the sheared panel zone in steel beam‐to‐column joints. This approach has been developed within the framework of a larger research project dedicated to the prediction of the full non‐linear behaviour up to failure of the sheared panel zone. It is suggested as an alternative to the current European and North American design approaches, which are proved to be unsafe in many cases. This is demonstrated in this paper through comparisons with a non‐exhaustive sample of experimental results carefully selected from the scientific literature. In contrast, the new proposed expression, which more faithfully depicts the physical phenomena governing the resistance of the panel zone, provides safe estimates for all the investigated cases.