Considering three longitudinal displacement functions and uniform axial displacement functions for shear lag effect and uniform axial deformation of thin-walled box girder with varying depths,a simple and efficient method with high precision to analyze the shear lag effect of thin-walled box girders was proposed.The governing differential equations and boundary conditions of the box girder under lateral loading were derived based on the energy-variational method,and closed-form solutions to stress and deflection corresponding to lateral loading were obtained.Analysis and calculations were carried out with respect to a trapezoidal box girder under concentrated loading or uniform loading and a rectangular box girder under concentrated loading.The analytical results were compared with numerical solutions derived according to the high order finite strip element method and the experimental results.The investigation shows that the closed-form solution is in good agreement with the numerical solutions derived according to the high order finite strip method and the experimental results,and has good stability.Because of the shear lag effect,the stress in cross-section centroid is no longer zero,thus it is not reasonable enough to assume that the strain in cross-section centroid is zero without considering uniform axial deformation.