Shear response of stainless steel plate girders

Resistance to shear is one of the most important load cases to be considered when designing slender steel plated structures, but this issue has not been widely studied in stainless steel structures due to its recent introduction into construction as structural material. This paper presents an experimental and numerical investigation to study the response of stainless steel plated girders subjected to shear load near service conditions and their evolution up to failure developed in the Laboratory of Structural Technology of the Department of Construction Engineering in the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC). Experimental results have been compared with those derived from the application of ENV 1993-1-4 and with the results derived from the numerical model. Some conclusions can be reached from the investigation on shear strength of stainless steel plated girders. Moreover, a new expression for the critical shear buckling stress in simply supported stainless steel plates is presented and a comparative analysis among different design methods to determine shear resistance has been performed.