Abstract:
The presence of web openings in castellated beams introduces different modes of failure at the perforated sections such
as excessive stresses in tee-sections, excessive stresses in mid-depth of the web post, web-post buckling, developing
plastic Vierendeel mechanism. This paper presents nonlinear behavior of castellated beams under moment gradient
loading and investigates the effect of beam length and braced length on moment-rotation behavior and ductility of this
type of beams. Accuracy of finite element models of plain-webbed beams is evaluated comparing moment-rotation behavior
and failure mode of other researchers’ numerical models and cleared a satisfactory accuracy. Rotational capacity
of castellated beams, derived from numerical modeling, is compared with corresponding I-shaped plain-webbed steel
beams and it is cleared that for the short beams, web openings reduce energy absorbance and plastic moment capacity
of the beams more than long ones.
