Ultimate strength analysis of stub girders

Abstract

This paper is on the determination of the ultimate load-carrying capacity of stub girders. Two different methods are presented for this purpose. In the first method, the stub girder is modeled as a vierendeel truss girder. Based on an assumed collapse mechanism, shear force distribution between the top and bottom chords proportioned according to the shear and flexural stiffnesses and point of contraflexure at the midlength of opening, an explicit expression to calculate the ultimate load is derived. The second method uses the finite-element software package ABAQUS for the nonlinear analyses of idealized two-dimensional stub girder models. The methods furnish results that are in reasonable agreement with experimental results, for girders in which the premature failure of shear connectors, local buckling of stubs and the main girder, and the longitudinal shear failure are prevented.