| Abstract: | Shear stiffness of trapezoidal steel sheets with two edges fastened. Profiled sheeting is often fastened only at the two edges which are normal to the span of the profiles according to its uniaxial load bearing behaviour for transverse loading and due to high effort in achieving all‐sided fastening. According to available design codes it is not possible to use the shear stiffness of this kind of diaphragms to stabilise beams against lateral torsional buckling. Therefore the effect of unsupported edges parallel to the span is investigated numerically and experimentally. This nonlinear investigation includes the flexibility of the fasteners. The numerical results agree well with the test results up to failure load. A knock‐down‐factor depending upon the a/b‐ratio and the shear stiffness of the diaphragm supported along 4 edges is obtained from the parametric investigations. The application of this knock‐down‐factor to the shear stiffness of the diaphragm supported along 4 edges gives that for the diaphragm supported along 2 edges. All this applies for the design load according to 6]. The ultimate loads of the diaphragms are much higher than these design loads. |
