Despite growing interest in the use of stainless steel in construction and the development of a number of national and regional design codes, stainless steel is often still regarded as only suitable for specialised applications. This is partly due to the high initial material cost associated with the most commonly adopted austenitic grades. The initial material cost of stainless steel is largely controlled by the alloy content, in particular the level of nickel, which is around 8% -10% for the common austenitic grades. A recently developed grade, known as lean duplex stainless steel (EN 1.4162), has a far lower nickel content, around 1.5%, and hence lower cost. Despite the low nickel content, it possesses higher strength than the common austenitic stainless steels, along with good corrosion resistance and high temperature properties and adequate weldability and fracture toughness. The structural performance of lean duplex stainless steel remains relatively unexplored to date with only a few studies having been performed. For this reason, an experimental and analytical research programme investigating the structural characteristics of lean duplex stainless steel was initiated.The present paper summarizes the laboratory tests performed on lean duplex stainless steel welded I-sections. The experiments include material testing, stub column tests and

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An experimental and numerical study of the shear response of lean duplex stainless steel plate girders is described in this paper. A total of nine welded plate girders were tested. Lean duplex stainless steel, which is a low nickel variety of the material, has approximately twice the strength of the common austenitic grades and at approximately half the initial cost. It also possesses good corrosion resistance and high temperature properties, as well as adequate weldability and fracture toughness. Two web panel aspect ratios and a range of web slendernesses were considered. The results from the experiments, including the full load-deformation histories and failure models are reported. A numerical investigation was carried out in parallel with the testing. The models were first validated against the experimental results after which parametric studies were performed to generate data for a wider range of cross-sections. The generated experimental and numerical data were used to assess the shear resistance design equations given in Eurocode 3: Part 1.4. The current design provisions were shown to be safely applicable to lean duplex stainless steel, though improved guidance is sought in further ongoing research. Saliba, N. and Gardner, L. (2013). Experimental study of the shear response of lean duplex stainless steel plate girders. Engineering Structures. 46,[375][376][377][378][379][380][381][382][383][384][385][386][387][388][389][390][391]

The behaviour and design of stainless steel plate girders loaded in shear is investigated in this

The continuous strength method (CSM) is a recently developed deformation-based design method for metallic structures. In this method, cross-section classification is replaced by a normalized deformation capacity, which defines the maximum strain that a cross-section can endure prior to failure. This limiting strain is used in conjunction with an elastic, linear-hardening material stress-strain model to determine cross-section capacity allowing for the influence of strain hardening. To date, the CSM has been developed for the determination of cross-section capacity under normal stresses (i.e. compression, bending and combined loading), where it has been shown to offer more accurate predictions than current codified methods. In this paper, extension of the CSM to the determination of shear resistance is described. The relationship between the normalized shear deformation capacity, referred to as the shear strain ratio, and the web slenderness is first established on the basis of experimental and numerical data. The material model and proposed resistance functions are then described. Comparisons of the developed method with the ultimate shear capacity of a series of tested stainless steel plate girders show that improved resistance predictions of test capacity over current design methods are achieved