Behaviour of longitudinally stiffened stainless-steel plate girder under combined bending and shear

Due to the high corrosion resistance, the use of stainless steel is increased in a wide range of environment in the last two decades. The behaviour of stainless steel is different from that of carbon steel, especially in a stress-strain relationship. Stainless steel has a rounded stress-strain curve, whereas carbon steel exhibits a sharp yield point in the stress-strain curve. Stainless steel has better strain hardening capacity and possesses high ductility. Stiffeners are generally utilised in plate girder for increasing the load-carrying capacity by providing better resistance against buckling of web panels. The existing study related to austenitic stainless steel plate girder studied the effect of longitudinal stiffener placed at the centre of the web panel alone. Present work uses to optimise position of longitudinal stiffener in stainless steel plate girder subjected to combined bending and shear. The behaviour is analysed by using finite element software ABAQUS. The optimum location for longitudinal stiffener in long-span stainless steel plate girder under combined bending and shear was identified and compared the results with the standard design codes.