Shear response of trapezoidal profiled webs in girders with concrete-filled RHS flanges

Abstract The present paper deals with the shear buckling response of trapezoidal profiled webs in girders with concrete-filled rectangular hollow section (RHS) flanges. It outlines an experimental work of four girders with shear buckled trapezoidal profiled webs in interactive and global manners. Characteristic strain distributions on the trapezoidal profiled webs are reported. The analysis of load-deformation responses indicates that the trapezoidal profiled web buckled in the global manner suffered greater strength drops at early stage and less strength improvement contributed by the concrete-filled RHS flange in contrast to those buckled in interactive manner with partial local buckling. Finite element models explicitly allowing for isolated trapezoidal profiled webs with varied side boundaries and visual girder models with proposed design ratios are then presented for 572 cases. It is shown that the first eigenmode shape and critical stressing of the trapezoidal profiled webs are most likely influenced when the shear buckling in local manner takes place. Related geometric ratios involved with shear span, web slenderness, trapezoid altitude and subpanel height are examined through a parametric study. Afterwards, an analytical formula incorporating a proposed rigidity ratio as well as a correlated contribution coefficient is proposed for the determining shear buckling strength of trapezoidal profiled webs in the girders with concrete-filled RHS flanges. The proposed formula is verified in contrast to referred ones through a comparative study which can be deemed suitable for the design of trapezoidal profiled webs in girders with concrete-filled rectangular hollow section (RHS) flanges.