Ultimate strength of tapered web plate girder panels under uniform shear

This paper presents an assessment on the ultimate strength of tapered steel plate girders subjected to uniform shear stresses under the influence of both geometric and material imperfections,namely,the residual stresses. given models of different imperfections in the literature are studied and suitable ones are selected,compared with,and applied. an efficient finite element fe model is presented. a suitable and idealized loading model is developed to generate a uniform shear stress over the tapered web plate. an analytical method is presented to include the effect of the tapering on the values of the residual stresses using the self-equilibrium principle under the initial conditions. the effect of the structural imperfections on the shear strength for different web shapes and slenderness is investigated. the change of the shear load direction to the web tapering,and its impact on the ultimate shear strength,is considered. empirical formulae are developed for tapered webs,to include all the parameters in a simplified solution by using the usual parameters for prismatic ones.