Flexural strength of steel plates with reinforced opening

The floor joists of cold-formed steel buildings often require large web openings. A cost effective way to mitigate the detrimental effects of such openings is to provide reinforcements. Recently, limited experimental studies were conducted to establish such reinforcement schemes for openings in the flexural zone. Further studies are underway to establish effective reinforcement schemes for large web openings located in the shear zones, and in shear/flexural transition zones. Finite element analysis has been used to establish effective reinforcement schemes, which are proposed to be used in an experimental investigation. This paper presents the details associated with the finite element analyses of a thin simply-supported rectangular plate having a large opening, subjected to in-plane flexural loadings until failure. The investigation focussed on circular, square and rectangular openings. The paper discusses the modelling techniques used to incorporate the reinforcements fastened to the main plates using self-drilling screws. This paper discusses the analyses associated with the reinforcements for large circular, square and rectangular openings in a plate. © 2006 by School of Engineering and Technology, Asian Institute of Technology.