Shear buckling strength and design of curved corrugated steel webs for bridges

This paper presents the shear buckling strength and design of curved corrugated steel webs for bridges considering material inelasticity. The inelastic buckling strength is determined from buckling curves based on the proposed shear buckling parameter, which is a function of the elastic shear buckling strength of steel web and the material shear yielding strength. A finite element analysis is carried out to study the geometric parameters affecting the shear buckling strength of curved corrugated steel webs for bridges. Based on the numerical results, a shear buckling parameter formula is proposed with no need to calculate either local, global, or interactive buckling parameters. But it depends on the geometric properties of the curved corrugated web profile. Another formula is presented to maximize the shear buckling capacity of curved corrugated web. The proposed formulae agreed well with the published experimental data. The curved corrugated webs produce a tremendous increase in the shear buckling strength and considerable weight saving in regard to the corresponding trapezoidal corrugated webs. The corrugation angle has a considerable effect on the behavior of curved corrugated webs, where higher corrugation angles produce a tremendous increase in the shear buckling strength of curved corrugated webs. It was found that the proposed approach provides a good prediction for the shear buckling strength of curved corrugated steel webs of bridges. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.