Additional bending moment for shear-lag phenomenon in tube structures

Framed-tube system with multiple internal tubes is analysed using an orthotropic box beam analogy approach in which each tube is individually modelled by a box beam that accounts for the flexural and shear deformations, as well as the shear-lag effects. A simple numerical modeling technique is proposed for estimating the shear-lag phenomenon in tube structures with multiple internal tubes. The proposed method idealizes the framed-tube structures with multiple internal tubes as equivalent multiple tubes, each composed of four equivalent orthotropic plate panels. The numerical analysis is based on the minimum potential energy principle in conjunction with the variational approach. The shear-lag phenomenon of such structures is studied taking into account the additional bending moments in the tubes. A detailed work is carried out through the numerical analysis of the additional bending moment. The moment factor is further introduced to identify the shear lag phenomenon along with the additional moment.