Numerical study of the flange buckling behavior of trapezoidally corrugated web girders

Trapezoidal corrugated web steel plate girders (TCWPGs) are heavily considered as advanced structural elements in the structural engineering branch due to their many advantages. However, not many researchers focused on studying the calculation of the capacity of these girders under bending moment and the bending behavior of these girders when it fails by flange local buckling of the slender compression flange. In this paper, an intensive parametric study has been performed on trapezoidal corrugated web girders subjected to pure bending moment to investigate and analyze the flange local buckling coefficient. Flange slenderness ratio, web slenderness ratio, flange-to-web thicknesses ratio and the trapezoidal web enclosing effect were investigated numerically to study and analyze their effect on the coefficient of local flange buckling in this type of girders. Also, bending moment resistance of these girders has been studied. The behavior of these girders has been investigated using ABAQUS FE software. A criterion of the Egyptian code for classifying the compression flanges has been found to be suitable to be used for studying the effect of web thickness on the bending moment resistance of trapezoidal web girders. Depending on the shape of the web corrugations, it is specified if the compression flange slenderness should be depending on the average outstand distance or the maximum outstand distance. Also, some important advices have been introduced for the economic and safe design of these girders to be taken in designers' consideration. Ultimately, a new design procedure has been deduced to present a classification limit for non-compact compression flanges in plate girders with trapezoidal corrugated web.