Experiments and theory on deck and girder crushing

This paper is concerned with theoretical and experimental analysis of deep plastic collapse of a deck or deep girder subjected to an in-plane, concentrated load. A theory is derived which is valid until initition of fracture in the structure. The presented experimental results show load-deflection curves and modes of deformation for decks, stringer decks and deep thin-walled beams subjected to central or excentric point loads between transverse frames. Based on theory and experiments, various modelling aspects of the local/global failure of the beams are discussed. The agreement between the theoretical closed form solutions and the experimental results is good.