Abstract:
Girders with corrugated webs are a widely used structural element in many fields of application
because of their numerous favourable properties, such as savings on material use, reduced
transportation and erection costs, and extended fatigue life. Although they are built-up sections,
their performance is comparatively good when compared with hot-rolled sections. But the
provision of web corrugation in I-steel girders introduces typical failure modes depending on the
geometry of the web, the lateral restrained condition, the quality of the welding, and the
slenderness of the web.
The main objective of this research was to investigate the behaviour of flexure and lateral torsional buckling with diffirent corrugated webs to determine their ultimate load-carrying
capacity and buckling moment resistance using finite element analysis.
The research focused on the effect of the shape of the web, spacing of the transverse stiffener over
depth ratio (a/h), and the corrugation ratio (q/w) on the flexural and lateral-torsional buckling
behaviour of a girder with a corrugated web. A total of 48 samples of girders with web corrugation
were studied using finite element analysis with the ABAQUS/CAE 6.14 software package under
four-point bending. The FE models are validated with existing experimental data from the
literature for flexural behaviour and numerical calculation by using the ESEN-3 code for lateral torsional buckling to examine the accuracy of the simulations. The values from the FE model agree
with the test and numerical calculation results.
In conclusion, the analysis showed that the web's shape significantly affects the ultimate load
capacity and buckling moment resistance value. The ultimate load-carrying capacity of
rectangular, trapezoidal, zigzag, and sinusoidal corrugated web girders increased by 28.85%,
26.15%, 14.61%, and 6.2%, respectively, compared with the girder without web corrugation, and
the buckling moment resistance values of rectangular, trapezoidal, zigzag, and sinusoidal
corrugated web girders were 27.32%, 18.62%, 12.7%, and 7.6%, respectively, compared with the
girder without web corrugation. The corrugation (q/w) ratio significantly affects the flexural and
buckling resistance values, and the spacing of the transverse stiffener over depth ratio (a/h)
slightly affects the flexural and buckling moment resistance values. A girder with a corrugation
ratio of 0.39 gives more satisfying results than others in respect of ultimate load-carrying capacity
for rectangular, zigzag, sinusoidal, and trapezoidal corrugated web girders.
