Distortional Buckling Analysis of Steel-Concrete Composite Girders in Negative Moment Area

Distortional buckling is one of the most important buckling modes of the steel-concrete composite girder under negative moment. In this study, the equivalent lateral and torsional restraints of the bottom flange of a steel-concrete composite girder under negative moments due to variable axial forces are thoroughly investigated. The results show that there is a coupling effect between the applied forces and the lateral and torsional restraint of the bottom flange. Based on the calculation formula of lateral and torsional restraints, the critical buckling stress of I-steel-concrete composite girders and steel-concrete composite box girders under variable axial force is obtained. The critical bending moment of the steel-concrete composite girders can be further calculated. Compared to the traditional calculation methods of elastic foundation beam, the paper introduces an improved method, which considers coupling effect of the external loads and the foundation spring constraints of the bottom flange. Fifteen examples of the steel-concrete composite girders in different conditions are calculated. The calculation results show a good match between the hand calculation and the ANSYS finite element method, which validated that the analytic calculation method proposed in this paper is practical.