Ultimate shear strength of plate elements with pit corrosion wastage

The aim of the present paper is to investigate the ultimate strength characteristics of steel plate elements with pit corrosion wastage and under in-plane shear loads. A series of the ANSYS nonlinear finite element analyses for plate elements under in-plane shear loads are carried out, varying the degree of pit corrosion intensity and the plate geometric properties. Closed-form design formulae for the ultimate strength of pitted plates under edge shear, which are essentially needed for the ultimate limit state based risk or reliability assessment of corroded structures, are derived by the regression analysis of the computed results. The insights developed from the present study will be very useful for damage tolerant design of plated structures with pit corrosion wastage. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.