Experimental Verification of Cross-Sectional Curved Steel Plates in Shear

The use of cross-sectional curved steel plates has been increased. They increase the bridge’s aesthetics and can be beneficial to the overall bridge performance. Based on numerical analysis, a design method has been proposed. Since this design proposal is surely based on FE analysis, it is not possible to have a 100% certainty about its reliability. For this reason, two girders with a single curved web are designed and tested in a three-point-bending test. During the test, both strains and deformations were monitored. In addition, the full web behaviour was captured by a 3D ARAMIS system. The experiment showed that the webs had a higher buckling resistance than was expected