Abstract：In industrial plants of steel structure, steel plate girders are commonly used to
support massive weight equipment. The span-depth ratios of these girders are generally around
5. Because of large span-depth ratio of web, the shear resistances of these girders have great
influences on their load-bearing capacities. Therefore, the interaction of shear buckling with
other instability modes for the classification purpose (i.e., the selection of the analysis
procedure) should be examined especially for I-section girders with high shear ratio (i.e., the
shear force is greater than half of the plastic shear resistance). Static loading tests are
carried out on four specimens, and the corresponding finite element simulations are verified.
Experimental and FE simulation results disclose that there are two major failure modes, namely,
elasto-plastic global buckling mode and local buckling mode of web. Due to the obvious local-
global correlation of plate girders, the applicability of existing classification and design
methods of cross section and its obeyed "rule of single plate member" to the plate girders is
not good. Based on the development of the design of steel structure and members, the
classification and design methods of members can be extended to short-deep plate girders. It is
recommended that the failure modes of members shall be predicted according to the design
parameters of members firstly, and then the designs shall be carried out according to the
corresponding calculation methods of bearing capacity.
