Thin-Walled Structures 24 (1996) 135-156

Copyright '~', 1996 Elsevier Science Limited

Printed in Great Britain. All rights reserved
0263-8231/96/$15.00
ELSEVIER 0263-8231(95)00029-1

Ultimate Strength of Girders with Trapezoidally

Corrugated Webs Under Patch Loading

R. L u o & B. E d l u n d
Division of Steel and Timber Structures, Chalmers University of Technology,
S-41296 Gothenburg, Sweden
(Received 27 May 1994; accepted 20 December 1994)

ABSTRACT

Ultimate strength of steel plate girders with trapezoidally corrugated webs

under patch loading is studied using a non-linear finite element method.
Effect of large deflection is taken into account and a yon Mises material
either without strain hardening (elastic-perfectly plastic), or with strain-
hardening obeying Ramberg-Osgood's equation, is assumed. The following
factors that influence the ultimate strength are investigated." (1) strain-
hardening models; (2) initial imperfections (local and global); (3)
variation of yield stress and strain-hardening degree at the corrugation
corners due to cold-forming, 'corner-effects'," (4) loading position," (5) load
distribution length, and (6) variation of geometric parameters. Based upon
the numerical results obtained, an empirical formula for the prediction of
the ultimate strength is suggested.

1 INTRODUCTION

Ultimate strength and post-buckling behaviour of thin-walled structural

steel members have been of interest in recent years due to their widely
increased application. Fundamental to the assessment of the load-carrying
capacity is a reliable prediction of the load-deformation response, when
local buckling, initial geometric imperfections of steel sections, residual
stresses produced by manufacturing processes and material non-linearities
are taken into account.
When using a finite element method, the determination of the ultimate
load o!["a given structure usually involves an elastic-plastic large deflection

135
136 R. Luo, B. Edlund

(large rotation/small strain) analysis. For plate girders with flat webs, such
comprehensive analyses have been carried out, see e.g. Crisfield, ~ Frieze
e t al. 2 and references therein. A rather common loading case on such
girders is a concentrated load applied perpendicularly to the upper flange
in the plane of the web. This loading case, usually called patch loading,
occurs for crane girders with a moving load or when girders are erected by
launching, etc.
In practice, plate girders with flat webs are often stiffened by welding
stiffeners to the webs. In many cases, however, flat webs are replaced with
corrugated webs of trapezoidal or other types, resulting in a kind of
distributed web stiffening. To carry a given load, a girder with corrugated
web thus in general needs less material and, therefore, provides a lighter
structure in comparison with a girder with web stiffeners. Besides the
convenience in the manufacture, this should be the most important reason
why the application of such girders should be widely increasing.
For girders with corrugated webs, however, few experiments and
numerical investigations have been made. Bergfelt e t al. 3 made some
experiments on such girders under shear loading and patch loading. Frey 4
and Gachon 5 tested shear buckling of girders with 'folded' web and with
smoothly undulating corrugations, respectively. Lindner 6 also conducted
similar experiments and, in addition, examined various interaction
formulae suggested by other researchers over the years. L u o 7 and Luo and
Edlund 8 applied a spline finite strip method to study the buckling
behaviour of steel panels with trapezoidally corrugated webs. This paper
can be considered as a continuation of the work reported in Refs 7 and 8.
In this paper, ultimate strength of steel girders with trapezoidally
corrugated webs under patch loading is studied using a non-linear finite
element method. Effect of large deflection is taken into account and a v o n
Mises material without strain hardening (elastic perfectly-plastic), and
with strain-hardening obeying Ramberg-Osgood's equation, 9 is assumed.
Various factors that influence the ultimate strength are investigated. Some
numerical results are compared with experiments that were conducted at
Chalmers University of Technology by Dahl6n and Krona. ~° Based upon
the results, an empirical formula for the prediction of the ultimate strength
is suggested.

2 N O N - L I N E A R FINITE E L E M E N T M O D E L A N D
C O N V E R G E N C Y STUDY

A finite element program, ABAQUS, ll is used for the numerical studies.

The computations are performed on a SUN-SPARC/10 workstation.
 Ultimate strength of girders 137

Throughout the studies, an 8-node quadrilateral shell element is utilized to

model both webs and flanges. A v o n Mises material without strain hard-
ening {elastic-perfectly plastic) and with strain-hardening obeying
Ramberg-Osgood's equation is assumed. For the analysis with strain-
hardening, an isotropic hardening rule is adopted. In ABAQUS, consti-
tutive integration is made through an Euler-backward procedure together
with a consistent tangent modulus, 12 giving an implicit unconditionally
stable integration. Non-linear equations are solved by a modified Riks
method, see e.g. Crisfield j3 and Powell and Simons, j4 which is able to
efficiently handle snapping situations. For a complete description of the
finite element method and the computation algorithm we refer to Refs 12
16.
In order to obtain a sufficiently accurate approximate solution using
ABAQUS, there are three key issues to be addressed first: (1) element
mesh; (12) number of integration points through the element thickness and
(3) time-step size for constitutive integration. For the constitutive
integration, an automatic time-stepping procedure embedded in ABAQUS
is employed, and thus the accuracy of the numerical solution is mainly
dominated by the first two issues. In the following, these will first be
investigated.
A simply supported girder with trapezoidally corrugated thin web
welded to rather thick flanges, shown in Fig. 1, is chosen for investigation
of the influence of the above two issues on the load~leflection behaviour.
The girder is subjected to a so-called knife-load, i.e. a uniformly
distributed line load across the upper flange at Xp = 500 mm. An elastic-
perfectly plastic von Mises material is assumed. For the material proper-
ties, geometric parameters and boundary conditions we refer to Section 4,
except for the geometric variables for which the following values were
chosen: ~ = 45 °, tw = 2.62 mm, If = 10 mm, H = 1115 m m and
L = 1000 mm. Results are summarized as follows.

(1) Six meshes as shown in Fig. 2 and nine integration points through
tlae element thickness are used for the analysis. In Fig. 3, relations
between the load (P) and the vertical deflection (6) of the upper
flange at the loading point (cf. Fig. 1), are plotted for each of these
six meshes. The results clearly indicate that a convergent solution
has been obtained when the mesh given in Fig. 2(e) is used.
(2) The mesh given in Fig. 2(e) is used for the analysis, the number of
integration points through the element thickness is set to 3, 5 and 9.
In Fig. 4, P-6 curves obtained by the finite element analysis are
plotted. It can be seen that almost identical results can be obtained
when 5- or 9-point integrations are used, but that the ultimate
138 R. Luo, B. Edlund

Y P
(a)

x
IIIIIII
L

(b)

bLLdLLb
z

Fig. 1. A steel girder with trapezoidally corrugated webs under patch loading: (a) the
girder and the load; (b) the geometry of the web and the flange.

strength is underestimated by about 20% if a 3-point integration is

adopted.
Hence, it will be appropriate to use a mesh pattern like the mesh shown in
Fig. 2(e) and a 9-point integration through the element thickness for our
numerical studies.

3 FACTORS INFLUENCING THE ULTIMATE STRENGTH

Among the many factors that may influence the ultimate load of the
girders under patch loading, it is believed that the following are the most
important:
(1) strain-hardening model;
(2) corner-effect;
(3) initial imperfections (local and global);
(4) loading position;
 Ultimate strength of girders 139

(a) mesh 1 (b) mesh 2

IIIIIIIIII
IIIIIIIIII
IIIIIIIII
IIIIIIIII
IIIIIIIII
IIIIIIIII
IIIIIIIII
IIIIIIIII
IIIIIIIII
IIIIIIIII
IIIIIIIII
L IIIIIIIII
IIIIIIIII

(c) mesh 3 (d) mesh 4

IIIllllll
HnHm|l
fififi!!! lilliillllllllllllllllUl
|1||1||1., IIIIIIIII I
IIIIIIIII IIIIIIIII ;i i
IIIIIIIII IIIIIIIII I i
IIIIIIIII IIIIIIIII
illililll IIIIIIIII
ililinll IIIIIIIII i
.m.!! 111111111
IIIIIIIL, IIIIIIII!
liniiil IIIIIIIii
L~ IIIIIIII L 111111111
IIIIIIII IIIIIIIII i

(e) mesh 5 (f) mesh 6

I I I I I I I I I I I I I l l l l l l

IIIIllillllllllllllinl IIIIIIIIII II
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII IIIIIIIIll lii
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII IIIIIIIIII II
IIIIIIIIIiiiiiiiiii IIIIIIIIII Hi
IIIIIIIIIII Illillllll II
Illililllli IIIIIIIlil II
Illiilllill i IIIIIIIIII II
II Illlll I IIIIIIIIII in
IIIIIII IIIIIIIIII Ri
fllllilllll I li IIIIIIIIII II
L._a lilllllllil i L IIIIIIIIII II
iilllllllll i IIIIIIIIII II
Fig. 2. Six meshes for convergence study (the convergence found with mesh 5).
140 R. Luo, B. Edlund

200- Load (kN)

150,

mesh 1
........ mesh 2
100. mesh 3
.......... mesh 4
.......... mesh 5
mesh 6
50

0 . . . . Deflection (mm)
0 5 10 15 20

Fig. 3. Load~leflection relations obtained using different meshes.

Load P (kN)

100'
8

5O
'/I ~ number of integration points - 3
/ I

/I ...... number of integration points = 5

..... number of integration points - 9

0 ~ Deflection 6 (mm)
0 2 4 6 8 10

Fig. 4. Load~leflection relations obtained using different number of integration points

through element thickness.

(5) load distribution;

(6) geometric parameters, i.e. ~, tr, tw, H and L.
The factors (1) and (2) include the strain-hardening effects resulting from
cold-forming, which give irreversible plastic deformation which in turn
increases/changes the material strength and hardening properties. The so-
 Ultimate strength of girders 141

called corner-effect has been noticed by several researchers, see e.g.

Karren n7 and Hancock. ns Initial imperfections introduced locally and
globally during manufacturing give rise to a reduction of the ultimate
strength. In addition, loading position and the length of patch load
distribution also influence the load-carrying capacity of a girder. Hence, a
quantitative investigation of the effects resulting from the factors (3)-(5) is
also necessary. In this study factor (6) includes the angle of the web
corrugation, the web and flange thickness, the height and the width of a
girder. These are the geometric parameters that govern the ultimate
strength of a girder.
Other factors that may influence the load carrying capacity are
probably: residual stresses due to cold-forming and welding, repeated
loading, temperature, etc. In order to limit this paper and keep it brief and
clear, 'we shall focus on the effects of the six factors listed above. In the
next section, numerical results for these effects obtained by a finite
element analysis will be summarized.

4 ULTIMATE STRENGTH

A simply supported girder with a trapezoidally corrugated web subjected to

a concentrated load on the upper flange, cf. Fig. 1, is used to study the
effects of the six factors discussed in Section 3 on its ultimate strength. The
thickness of the web (tw) is chosen to be rather small in comparison with
that of" the flanges (tf). To simulate experiments on such a girder, the lateral
deflections of the flanges (in the z-direction) are restrained, i.e. w = 0, and
for the vertical stiffeners the rotations about the x- and y-axis are also
restrained, i.e. w = 0x = 0, 0y = 0. The geometric and material properties
of the web and the flanges are either constants or variables (see notations in
Fig. 1). The following properties are kept constant:

Young's m o d u l u s E = 2-1 x 105 MPa,

Pois;son's ratio v = 0.3,
Yield stress: aw = 335 M P a for the web, af = 380 M P a for the flanges
(for the R a m b e r g - O s g o o d strain-hardening model the stress corre-
sponding to a permanent strain of 0.2% is defined as the yield stress),
Width of corrugation subplates l = 70.71 m m , d = 140 m m ,
Dimensions of the horizontal flanges: l0 × 250 m m 2,
Dimensions of the vertical stiffeners: 15 x 250 m m 2
The following dimensions are varied in this study:
Girder depth H = 125, 250, 500, 1115 and 1500 (mm)
Girder span L = 380, 520 and 1000 (ram)
142 R. Luo, B. Edlund

Corrugation angle ~ = 30 °, 45 °, 60 °, 75 ° and 90 °

Flange thickness tf = 6.0, 8-0, 10.0, 12.0 and 14-0 m m
Web thickness tw = 1-0, 1-5, 2.0, 2.62 and 4.0 mm.

A knife-load applied on the upper flange at Xp 500 m m is considered in

=

Sections 4.1-4.3 and 4.6. This means that the load is at the midpoint of the
'flat part' of the corrugation. In Section 4.4 two other load positions are
also investigated. In Section 4-5, such a knife-load is replaced with a
uniformly distributed load over an area of c x bf to study the effects of the
width of load distribution.

4.1 Influence of strain-hardening models

In Fig. 5, two different effective stress (tr) versus effective strain (e)
relationships, or simply two stress-strain curves are shown, namely for an
elastic-perfectly plastic material and for the elastic-plastic material with
strain-hardening obeying a R a m b e r g - O s g o o d equation. F o r the
R a m b e r g - O s g o o d model, we have:

o
(1)
1-66
where n is a factor to describe the sharpness of the knee of the stress-strain
curve, cf. Section 4.2, and tr r, is the stress at which the remaining plastic
strain is p % . For mild steel, p = 0.2 has been suggested, which will be used
in the investigation.
In the finite element analysis, the elastic-plastic models represented by
Fig. 5 are assumed for the webs and only the elastic-perfectly plastic
material model is assumed for the flanges. F o r some geometric
parameters the values of the test girders in Ref. 10 are chosen:

(a) (b)
ff
t O

Oy

/ /
v

0.2%
Fig. 5. Stress-strain relations used in the finite element analysis: (a) elastic-perfectly
plastic model; (b) Ramberg-Osgood's model.
 Ultimate strength of girders 143

l o a d (kN) ~=m.s~
I ' 143"8

1111"

/ I ....... . ael comer

! !

0 5 10 15
Deflection (ram)

Fig. 6. L o a d ~ l e f l e c t i o n relations obtained with different elastic-plastic models. (ct = 45 °,

t~ = 2-62 mm, tf = 10 mm).

TABLE 1
Ultimate Strength o f Steel Girders Using Different Strain-Hardening Models

Strain-hardening model Elastic-perfectly Ramberg-Osgood Relative dif.[erence

plastic (A) (B) (B - A)/B%
tw (ram)
2.0 45 ° 102.7 117.2 12-4%
60 ° 113-9 123.9 8.1%
2.62 45 ° 132-4 150.2 I 1.8%
60 ° 142.6 155.8 8.5%
3.0 45 ° 144-4 161.2 10.4%
60 ° 151.3 167.6 9.8%

L = 1000 mm, H = 1115 mm, tw = 2 . 6 2 m m , t f = 10.0 mm, and ~ = 45 ° .

In Fig. 6, relationships between the load (P) and the deflection (6) o f the
upper flange at the loading point obtained by the finite element analysis,
are plotted.
In Table 1, the ultimate strength c o m p u t e d for each in a series o f such a
girder, with tw = 2-0 mm, 2.62 mm and 3-0 mm, and a = 45 ° and 60 °, is
given. The results indicate that when using a R a m b e r g - O s g o o d model as
in Section 4.2, the ultimate strength o f the girder is a b o u t 8 - 1 2 % higher
than that with the elastic-perfectly plastic model.
144 R. Luo, B. Edlund

4.2 Corner-effects

Processes for cold-forming of corrugation in the webs produce a local

increase both in yield stress and in the degree of strain-hardening for the
material in a small region around the corner of the web profile, which is
usually called corner-effects. Material tests have shown, see e.g. Karren 17
and Key and Hancock, IS that at highly worked corners the measured yield
stress is higher than at other parts, and depends on the yield stress and the
ultimate strength of the virgin material as well as on the bending radius o f
the corner. Karren 17 also suggested an empirical formula to predict the
yield stress at highly worked corners:

o: _ /~ (2)
ay (r/t) m
where,
fl = 3-69 t r u - 0.819 (au']2-1.79 (3)
try \ay/
and

rn = 0.192 au _ 0.068 (4)

O'y
and au is the ultimate material strength, ay the virgin material tensile yield
strength, r the corner bending radius and t the thickness o f the flat plate,
respectively. Karren pointed out that eqn (2) has only been verified for
ratio r / t < 7. Recently, Luo and Edlund ~9 found in their experiments that
it is still valid even for r / t = 15.
In order to numerically simulate the corner effects, a block distribution
of yield stresses is assumed for a trapezoidally corrugated web section.
This is more clearly illustrated in Fig. 7. In accordance with eqn (1), the

°t
0.002 e

Fig. 7. Variation of yield stresses and strain-hardening degrees due to cold-forming:

(a) yield stress around the section of the webs; (b) different stress-strain relation.
 Ultimate strength o/'girders 145

exponent n in the Ramberg-Osgood equation is set to 10-8 for the flat part
of the web and 12-9 for the corner part. Other parameters are the same as
those used in the previous section.
Relations between the load and the deflection of the upper flange at the
loading point obtained in the finite element analysis of this case are also
plotted in Fig. 6. It may be noticed that for this example the corner effect
is not significant although a slightly higher load-carrying capacity than
that obtained without considering the corner effect can be observed.
The deformations of the girder observed during the loading process are
developed in such a manner, that a bubble formed due to large deforma-
tions is seen first within the flat part of the web directly under the load,

(a) (b)
Height (m)

1,000'

0,800.
Pmax=151kN
0,600'
P=133kN
0,400'

0200'

0 ~46
t ~ R ~ ¸ 24
0,000 i |

-10 10 20
Olllpktcente~ (mm)

(c) (d)

0¸246

Fig. 8. Out-of-plane deformation and plastic zones (comer effects included, P = 143.8 kN,
cf. Fig. 6): (a) deformation contour; (b) web displacement along the vertical line through
the loading point; (c) plastic zone in the web, and (d) plastic zone in the upper flange.
146 R. Luo, B. Edlund

and then two such bubbles appear in the oblique parts adjacent to the first
bubble (one bubble .in each oblique part) when increasing the load.
Moreover, almost at the same time as these bubbles appear, plastic
deformations occur in the regions where the bubbles form. Such web
behaviour is found to be about the same for the two analyses with and
without consideration of the corner-effects respectively. Figure 8
illustrates the out-of-plane deformations and plastic zones obtained in the
finite element analysis where the corner-effects are included, for a load
level which is beyond the m a x i m u m load, namely P = 143.8 kN, cf. Fig. 6.
It is clearly shown in Fig. 8 that a so-called three-hinge-flange mechanism
has been developed as has frequently been observed in experiments. F r o m
these observations, it should be easier to understand why the load-
carrying capacity cannot be increased greatly even if such corner-effects
are included.

4.3 Initial imperfections

Initial imperfections introduced during manufacturing can be either local

or global. It is assumed in our finite element analysis that a global initial
imperfection has a shape given by

w (x, y) = A sin ~~x sin ~y (5)

where A is a non-zero parameter representing the m a x i m u m lateral

imperfection. The local initial imperfection is defined within a rectangular
area o f size l × h which has its lower-left corner located at the point
(Xa, Ya), and expressed by eqn. (6):

w(Y,y) = Bsin _ ~ sin ---_ (6)

l h
where B is a non-zero parameter having the same meaning as A,
2 -- x - Xa and y = y - Ya, respectively.
The example used in Section 4.2 for the investigation of corner-effects is
used again (geometry etc. defined in Section 4.1) and the initial
imperfections are introduced with eqns (5) and (6) with A = H/1000,
-- 100 mm, 7 = 140 mm, B = h/100, X a ~-- 430 m m and Ya = 1015 mm.
The half-wave length h of the imperfection is about the same as the half-
wave length o f the bubble at the web top, Fig. 8(b).
In Fig. 9 P-6 curves obtained by the finite element analysis with the two
types of imperfection are plotted. For comparison, results obtained in a
finite element analysis without initial imperfections and those obtained
from experiments by Dahl6n and K r o n a ~° are also plotted in the figure. It
 Ultimate strength of girders 147

Load(kN)

•150100 ~ m p e d e c t i o n
r[ -- within'~ialglobalimpeaection
t -" withoutimperfection
• experiment by Dahl6n& Krona[10]

50 ,,,.o~o~~_

0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12
Deflection(mm)
Fit;. 9. Load~leflection relations obtained with various initial imperfections.

can be observed that the small global initial imperfection does not have
much effect on the behaviour and load-carrying capacity of the girder. On
the other hand, the local initial imperfection results in a notable effect (a
reduction of nearly 7% in the ultimate load). In addition, the load-
displacement curve obtained for the girder with a local imperfection is
somewhat closer to that from the experiments, than the other two
computed curves of Fig. 9. Indeed, the first of the two latter curves almost
coincides with the second one in the declining part.

4.4 Influence of loading position

The influence of the following three loading positions is investigated,

namely (cf. Fig. 10),
(1) the centre of the 'fiat' part (of the corrugation),
(2) the corner (of the corrugation profile), and
(3) the centre of the oblique part (of the corrugation profile).
The material and geometric parameters are assumed to be the same as
those used in Section 4.2, and Xp = 500 mm, 570 mm and 595 mm for the
above three cases, respectively.
In Fig. 11, P-6 curves obtained by the finite element analysis are
plotted. For comparison, results from the experiments by Dahl+n and
Krona l° are also plotted. It can be observed that when the knife-load is
148 R. Luo, B. Edlund

(a) C
(b) (c)
; *-~ I I ; ' '
'
,

| I I

,
I
~] ', : : :
I I | I '1 I
I i " I I

Fig. 1O. Three loading positions: (a) loaded at the centre of the flat part; (b) loaded at the
corner part; (c) loaded at the oblique part.

Load (kN)

] I / ~ loaded at the centerof the flat part

| I }k .............. loaded at the comer
50 '1 t I ..... loaded at the center of the oblique part
[! f " expen'rnentby Dahl6n and Krona [10]

o~ r t )
0 2 4 6 8 10 12
Deflection (mm)
Fig. 11. Load-deflection relations obtained with different loading positions.

applied to the centre of the oblique part, the girder has the highest
ultimate load, whereas the girder has the lowest ultimate load when it is
applied to the centre of the flat part. Also, when the load is applied to
the centre of the oblique part and to the corner, the load carrying
capacity drops rapidly after the ultimate load is reached, but when the
load is applied to the centre of the flat part, it reduces smoothly. The
experimental results, Figs 9 and 11, show a similar trend as the
numerical results.
Dahl6n and Krona ~° observed in their experiments that the webs are
 Ultimate strength of girders 149

.p
(a) t

(b)

.,.,=Z,,.,,m~m~
"I ...... 1 1. %
. ... ~ =, ~ - °l'mml;-
. ,~=,= -

IIIIIiillllnllUllllltlllll
IllllllllllUllllllllmlllll
iiiiimlllllllllllllrmmllll
IIIliilllllMIIIIIB|llll
IIIIEIIIIIIMIIIIIIIIIII
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
IIIIlUlIIIIIIlUlIIIIIIIIII
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
IIIIIIII1111111111111111111111
l "= ~.JILIJLJJILULLLLIII III, 1o III III
IIIIII I IIIIIIIIIIIIIII I IIIIII !1111

(c)

Fig. 12. Out-of-plane deformation and plastic zones (a knife load applied to the oblique
part, c o m e r effect included, P = 140.3 kN, cf. Fig. I 1): (a) deformation contour; (b) plastic
zone in the web, and (c) plastic zone in the upper flange.
150 R. Luo, B. Edlund

crippled after the collapse of the girder. Figure 12 shows out-of-plane

deformations and plastic zones obtained by the finite element analysis for
a load level P = 140.3, after passing the m a x i m u m load (cf. Fig. 11). The
deformations and plastic zones shown in this figure clearly indicate such a
crippling phenomenon.

4.5 Influence of load distribution

The knife-loading that has been considered so far results from a

mathematical point of view in a singular behaviour in exact solutions,
which consequently reduces the load-carrying capacity. This section is
devoted to study the effects when such a knife-load is replaced with a
uniformly distributed patch load over an area c × bf (cf. Fig. 10), where
the latter of course is more realistic than the former. The material and
geometric parameters are assumed to be the same as those used in the
test, 1° i.e. aw = 3 1 9 . 8 MPa, on = 352-8 MPa, tw = 2 . 5 5 mm, other
parameters are the same as those used in Section 4.2. The patch load is
applied to the centre o f the fiat part o f the web with its centre located at
x o = 500.0 mm. The loading length c is set to 50-0 m m and 115.2 mm,
respectively, this choice is mainly due to the availability of experimental
results (50 mm) or is related to the finite element mesh, cf. Fig. 8.
In Fig. 13, P - 6 curves obtained from the finite element analysis are
plotted and compared with results from the experiments by Dahl6n and

Load (kN)

=t / .... ---.

11 /
V - experiment
(Dahldn& Krona[101,c-50mm)

0 ~ I)eflecUon(ram)
0 2 4 6 8 10 12
Fig. 13. Load~zleflectionrelations obtained with different distribution of a load applied at
the flat part.
 Ultimate strength of girders 151

Krona. m It is shown that the ultimate load c o m p u t e d agrees well with

the experimental ones. A noticeable result that can be observed from
this figure is that the ultimate load c o m p u t e d when using a knife-load is
about ,40% and 20% lower than that c o m p u t e d when using a uniformly
distributed load with c = 115-2 m m and 50.0 m m , respectively. These
results indicate that, when a knife-load is replaced by a uniformly
distributed patch load, the ultimate strength can be approximately
calculated by
ppatch = (1 -[- T/C)euknife (7)

where ?7 is a positive coefficient. If a linear relationship can be

assumed in eqn (7), which obviously is not crude for engineering
practice, we then have ?7 = 1/240 according to the numerical results
(with c in mm).

4.6 Influence of geometric parameters

In thi,; section, parametric studies based on the following geometric

variables will be made: (1) the corrugation angle ct, (2) the thickness of
the web and of the flange, tw and tf, (3) the overall size of the girder H
and L. In the following, if not otherwise stated, the material and
geome~tric parameters will be assumed to be the same as those used in
Section 4.2, which implies that the R a m b e r g - O s g o o d strain-hardening
model will be used, the corner-effects will be included, a knife-loading
will be applied, etc.

Load(kN)

150- ~ 3 0 o
11111'

50'

0 . . . . DeflectionImm)
0 5 10 15 20
Fig. 14. Load-deflection relations obtained with various corrugation angles ~t.
152 R. Luo, B. Edlund

Load (kN)

2°01 ..-........................... ~--

• -.=.

150'-I l" . . . . . . . . . . -'-:.~'~"

o- . . . . . ..........
J . ,.o-
,i ' ¢ -" # ... . . . . . . . tw:zmm
.......
100'] :t # = --"
= t° s "~lw 1.5mm

0 5 10 15
Deflection (mm)

Fig. 15. Load~leflection relations obtained with different web thicknesses.

In Fig. 14, P - b curves o b t a i n e d f r o m the finite element analysis are

plotted for ~ = 30 °, 45 °, 60 °, 75 ° a n d 90 °. It shows t h a t for ~ ~< 75 ° the
ultimate load increases as ~ increases, but w h e n ~ > 75 ° this p h e n o m e n o n
seems n o t to be obvious. In fact, the ultimate load for ~ = 90 ° is a l m o s t
identical to t h a t for ~ = 75 °.
In Fig. 15, similar l o a d - d e f l e c t i o n curves o b t a i n e d in the finite element

L o a d (kN) if = 14 mm

200
t ~
--

If 12mm

.1 ..................................... ........
| l i ~ -- . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ',_:~_".__

0 2 4 6 8 10 12
Deflection (ram)
Fig. 16. Load~leflection relations obtained with different flange's thickness.
 Ultimate strength of girders 153

TABLE 2
Ultimate Strength of Steel Girder Under Knife Loading with
Various H and L

H(mm) 125 250 500 1115 1500

tw (ram) L (ram)
2.0 380 115.0 114.2 113.6 113.1 114-0
520 104.3 117-7 117.1 118.2 il9.3
1000 99-9 114-2 115.8 i17.2 118.5
2-62 380 121-9 149.9 147.7 147.9 148.6
520 130-7 146.2 149.0 151.0 151.9
1000 122.7 139-4 145-8 150.2 150.5

analysi,~ are plotted for tw = 1.0 mm, 1.5 mm, 2.0 mm, 2.62 mm and
4.0 mm. The results shown in the figure indicate that the ultimate load
increases almost proportionally to the web thickness.
In Fig. 16, load-xleflection curves obtained by the finite element analysis
are plotted for tf = 6.0 mm, 8.0 mm, 10.0 mm, 12-0 mm and 14.0 mm. It is
observe,d that when the thickness of the flange is increased from 6-0 mm to
14.0 m m the ultimate load increases, again, nearly proportionally to the
flange thickness.
In Table 2, the ultimate strength obtained by the finite element analysis
is given for girders under knife-edge load and with various H and L. The
results show that as the flanges are rather strong (tf = 10 mm), H and L
do not have much effect on the ultimate strength except when H is smaller
than about 200 mm.

5 AN EMPIRICAL FORMULA FOR PREDICTING T H E

ULTIMATE LOAD

For plate girders with flat webs under patch loading, several empirical
formulae have been suggested for the prediction of the ultimate strength,
see e.g. Bergfelt and Lindgren. 2° Bergfelt and Lindgren's formula is the
simplest one which is written as
Pu =: 13"Optftwtry
w
(8)
where p is a positive parameter which depends on the ratio tf/tw.
Doubtless, if eqn (8) is directly applied to girders with corrugated webs the
ultimate strength is underestimated. For girders with corrugated webs, it is
believed that the ultimate strength can still be estimated with an equation
similar to eqn (8). Hence, based upon the numerical results obtained in
154 R. Luo, B. Edlund

this paper, the following tentative empirical formula is suggested for

girders with a corrugation angle ~ ~< 75°:
eu = Ttftw O'Wy (9)
where 7 is a factor given by
~, = 15.67~c (10)
where the constant 15.6 is an empirical n u m b e r according to Bergfelt and
Lindgren. In eqn (10), ~ is a factor that takes account of the web
corrugation in the following manner,
b+l
(for tf/tw ~ 3.82) (1 la)
7~ -- b + / cos
7~ = 1 (for tf/tw < 3.82) (1 lb)
and 7c is another factor to consider the load distribution, which has been
discussed in Section 4.5 and is given as
~c = 1 + ~/c (12)
For girders with a corrugation angle 75 ° < ~ ~< 90 ° it is suggested that one
can still use this formula, but as observed in Section 4.6 one could then set
= 75 °.

6 CONCLUSIONS

Ultimate strength of steel girders with trapezoidally corrugated webs

under patch loading has been studied using a non-linear finite element
method. Various factors which may influence the ultimate strength have
been investigated and an empirical formula for the prediction of the
ultimate strength has been suggested for practical uses. F r o m the
numerical results obtained in the paper, the following conclusions can be
made within the limit of the present investigation:
(1) With a R a m b e r g - O s g o o d strain-hardening model for webs (for
various combination of material and geometrical parameters, see
Section 4.1), the ultimate strength of the girder is about 8-12%
higher than obtained with an elastic-perfectly plastic model.
(2) Corner effects due to cold-forming do not seem to have any
significant effect on the ultimate strength, although in general they
increase the load-carrying capacity.
(3) A small global initial imperfection does not reduce the load-
carrying capacity much, but a local initial imperfection in the web
 Ultimate strength of girders 155

near the load influences the load-deflection curve. About 7%

reduction of the ultimate load was found due to such a local
imperfection with an amplitude of about half the web thickness.
(4) When a knife-load is applied at the centre of the oblique part of the
corrugation, the investigated girder has the highest ultimate load,
whereas the girder has the lowest ultimate load when it is applied to
the centre of the flat part of webs.
(5) The load distribution (patch length e) is a factor that has a
pronounced influence on the load-carrying capacity of a girder. It
has been found that the ultimate load for a girder subjected to a
knife-load is about 40% and 20% lower than that when the knife-
load is replaced by a uniformly distributed patch load with length
c = 115.2 m m and 50 m m respectively.
(6) The ultimate strength of a girder increases as the corrugation angle
0~ increases for ~ ~< 75 °, and the ultimate load for ~ = 90 ° is almost
identical to that for ~ = 75 °. The ultimate load increases almost
proportionally to the web thickness and, also, almost
proportionally to the flange thickness. The panel dimensions H and
L do not have much effect on the ultimate strength for girders with
tr = 10 mm, except when H is extremely small (~< ~ 200 mm).

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