Behaviour and design of welded stainless steel beams with compact sections under flexure and shear

Abstract The present study explores the flexural and shear behaviour of welded stainless steel beams with compact sections. A total of eleven specimens fabricated with austenitic, duplex and lean duplex stainless steel were tested under four-point and three-point loading strategies to obtain their failure modes, bearing capacities and ductility performance. Three-dimensional finite element models were then developed and validated with experimental results to numerically investigate the flexural and shear performance of the compact stainless steel beams. The obtained results from tests and numerical simulations were synthesised to comprehensively assess the applicability of existing codes of practice in terms of the bending, shear and moment-shear interaction design. It is found that the current design guidance for stainless steel beams adopts the elastic-perfectly plastic material model and conservatively predicted the bending, shear, as well as combined moment-shear strength. Accordingly, revised design methods considering the strain hardening effect of stainless steel beams were proposed.