Tenth International

Colloquium on ‫اﻟﻤﺆﺗﻤـﺮ اﻟﺪوﻟﻰ اﻟﻌﺎﺷﺮ‬

Structural and Geotechnical ‫ﻟﻠﻬﻨﺪﺳﺔ‬
Engineering ‫اﻹﻥﺸﺎﺋﻴﺔ واﻟﺠﻴﻮﺗﻘﻨﻴﺔ‬
April 22-24, 2003 2003 ‫ إﺑﺮیﻞ‬24-22
Ain Shams University, Cairo,
Egypt
‫ اﻟﻘﺎهﺮة‬- ‫ﺝﺎﻡﻌﺔ ﻋﻴﻦ ﺷﻤﺲ‬

INTERACTIVE BUCKLING/FAILURE MODE OF CORRUGATED

STEEL WEB PLATES: A PROPOSED EQUATION AND A PROFOUND
INVESTIGATION

EZZELDIN YAZEED SAYED-AHMED1

ABSTRACT

Girders having corrugated steel webs represent a new innovative system which has emerged
in the past decade especially for short and medium span bridges. The new system may
combine the usage of corrugated steel plates as webs and reinforced/prestressed concrete
slabs as flanges for plate- or box-girders.

The flanges of a corrugated steel web girder solely provide the girder’s flexure strength with
hardly any significant contribution from the web. On the other hand, the corrugated web
provides the shear capacity of the girder: the only stresses appearing in the corrugated web
plates are “almost” pure shear stresses. In fact, corrugated steel webs withstand shearing
forces without carrying any axial stresses due to flexure, prestressing, creep, etc.

Failure of a corrugated steel web plate may occur by the classical steel yielding of the web
under pure shear stress state. It may also occur by web buckling due to either local instability
of any “panel” between two folds (local buckling) or overall instability of the web over two
or more panels (global buckling). An interactive failure mode between these different failure
criteria may also take place.

The shear behaviour of corrugated steel webs is explicitly investigated focusing on the
different failure modes which affect the design of corrugated steel web plates. A closed form
solution that considers local buckling, overall buckling and steel yielding of the web is
proposed. The effect of different geometric parameters on the failure mode of the corrugated
web plate is inspected.

Keywords: bridges, corrugated steel webs, global buckling, interactive buckling, local
buckling.

1
Associate Professor, Ain Shams University, Structural Engineering Department, Cairo, Egypt (on leave to
University of Qatar, Civil Engineering Department, PO Box 2713, Doha, Qatar).
E-mail: eysahmed@qu.edu.qa

E03ST26- 1
 INTRODUCTION

Corrugated steel webs may replace the stiffened steel plates of plate/box girders particularly
in bridges which results in a more economic and aesthetics system. The merits of replacing
the conventional flat web of a steel plate girder with a corrugated one were first recognized
by the research team of Campenon Bernard BTP, France. Cheyrezy and Combault (1990),
Elgaaly et al (1996), El-Metwally and Loov (1998), Lebon (1998), and Sayed-Ahmed (2001)
reported the merits and shortcomings of using girders with corrugated steel webs.

The web height to thickness ratio of corrugated steel webs ranges between 150 and 260 for
buildings and may be extended to reach 450 in bridges: a web height to thickness ratio of 445
was recently used for the Hondani Bridge1 box girder in Japan. During the past two decades,
bridges have been constructed using steel/composite plate- or box-girders with corrugated
steel webs in France and Japan (Sayed-Ahmed 2001). Two combined new innovations were
used in most of these bridges: external prestressing and corrugated steel webs.

Girders with corrugated steel webs may be constructed with steel or concrete flanges. The
most commonly used corrugation profile is the trapezoidal one for which the main geometric
characteristics are shown in Fig. 1. It is common for trapezoidal profile to have the same
width for all web panels (i.e. a=b and d/b = cos α). Consequently, all the panels will have the
same slenderness.

In this paper, the behaviour of corrugated steel webs is explicitly investigated. The different
buckling modes which may be encountered for these plates are presented and the interaction
between them is inspected. The interaction between the yield failure criterion and these
buckling modes is also investigated. An interaction equation which considers the different
failure criteria including steel yielding is proposed. The paper also scrutinizes the effect of
different geometric characteristics of the corrugated webs on the failure mode of the web.

GENERAL BEAHVIOUR OF GIRDERS WITH CORRUGATED WEBS

Flexural strength of a steel girder with a corrugated steel web plate is provided by the flanges
with almost no contribution from the web. Furthermore, there is no interaction between the
flexure and the shear behaviour of these girders. Thus, the ultimate moment capacity of a
girder with corrugated steel web can be based on the flange yield strength (Elgaaly et al. 1997;
Johnson and Cafolla 1997). On the other hand, El-Metwally and Loov (1998, 1999)
investigated the flexural capacity of composite girders with corrugated steel webs. They
concluded the same two basic aspects defined for steel girders: web contribution to the
flexural strength is negligible and there is no interaction between the flexure and the shear
behaviour.

The corrugated steel web solely provides the shear capacity of girders with corrugated steel
web. The shear strength is controlled by buckling and steel yielding of the web. The flanges
provide boundary supports for the web which lie somewhere between a simply supported
boundary and a clamped one. The clamped assumption for the web boundary is typical when
the flanges are made of concrete (composite section) while the simply supported boundary is
closer to girders with steel flanges. The shear behaviour and the buckling modes of

1
Hondani Bridge 1998, Conceptual Design Drawings, Japan Highway Public Corporation, Personal
communication

E03ST26- 2
corrugated steel webs will be the hub of this paper and will be discussed in details in the
following sections.

y
s

h
a α
hw
b d

c = 2 (b + d)
s = 2 (b + d / cos α)
h= d tan α
β= a/b
x

Figure 1. Trapezoidal profile of the corrugated steel web plates.

FAILURE MODES OF CORRUGATED STEEL WEBS

As mentioned earlier, the shear strength of a corrugated steel web girder is solely provided by
the web while the flanges only define the boundary restraints for the web. Thus, the only
significant stress which appears in the corrugated web is pure shear stress.

Failure of the corrugated steel web may occur by shear yielding, buckling or an interaction
between yielding and buckling. The shear stress which causes an element of the corrugated
web to yield when it is subjected to a pure shear stress state along its edges can be determined
using von Mises yield criterion by:
Fy
τy = (1)
3
where Fy is the yield strength of the steel.

Two buckling modes are associated with corrugated steel webs: local buckling and overall
(global) buckling. Local buckling mode corresponds to the instability of a steel panel simply
supported between two folds. In fact, the corrugated web in this mode of failure acts as a
series of flat panels that mutually support each other along their vertical (longer) edges. The
panels are supported by the flanges along their horizontal (shorter) edges. On the other hand,
global buckling mode is characterized by diagonal buckling over several corrugation panels.

Local buckling of a panel between two folds is investigated using equations derived for

E03ST26- 3
isotropic plates. Using the theory of stationary potential energy (Galambos 1998), an estimate
for the elastic critical shear stress τcr,l of the local buckling mode can be given by:
2
π2 ⋅E t 
τ cr ,l = ks ⋅ ⋅ w  (2)
12 ⋅ ( 1 − υ )  b 
2

where tw is the corrugated web plate thickness, b is the panel width, E and v are the Young’s
modulus and the Poisson’s ratio for the steel respectively and ks is a shear buckling
coefficient for the local buckling mode. The shear buckling coefficient is a function of the
boundary restraints, and the panel aspect ratio b/hw with hw being the web height where:
2
 b 
k s = 5.34 + 4.0   (3a)
 hw 
2 3
 b   b   b 
k s = 5.34 + 2.31  − 3.44   + 8.39   (3b)
 hw   hw   hw 
Equation 3a is applicable when all the sides of the panels are simply supported which
simulates steel girders with corrugated webs. On the other hand, Equation 3b is applicable
when the long sides of the panels are simply supported while the short sides are clamped: a
typical case for composite girders with corrugated steel webs and concrete flanges.

In Equations 2 and 3, the width of the “horizontal” panel b is used. However, if the “inclined”
panel width a is larger than the width of the horizontal panel b, it should be considered as the
critical panel width in the previous equations.

In case of overall (global) buckling of the web, the critical shear stress is estimated by
considering the corrugated web as an orthotropic plate. Based on the Ritz method (Easley and
McFarland 1969 and 1975), the critical shear stress of this mode τcr,g is defined by:

τ cr ,g = k g ⋅
(D y ⋅ Dx3 )
1/ 4

(4)
hw2 ⋅ t w
where kg is the global shear buckling coefficient. Dx and Dy are the flexural stiffness per unit
corrugation about x- and the y-axes respectively which can be given by:

E  b ⋅ t w ⋅ [d ⋅ tan α ] t w ⋅ [d ⋅ tan α ] 
2 3
E ⋅ Ix
Dx = = ⋅ + (5a)
c b+d  4 12 ⋅ sin α 

 c   E ⋅ t w   b+d   E ⋅ t w 
3 3
Dy =   ⋅  = ⋅ (5b)
 s   12   b + d / cos α   12 
In Equations 5a and 5b, Ix is the second moment of area of one “wavelength” of the web
having a projected length c and an actual length s (Fig. 1), tw is the web thickness, b is the
panel width and d·tan α is the corrugation depth. The global shear buckling coefficient kg
depends solely on the web top and bottom restraints. The values used for kg are 36 for simply
supported edges (girders with steel flanges) and 68.4 for clamped edges (girders with
composite flanges).

E03ST26- 4
 INTERACTION BETWEEN FAILURE MODES

Currently Available Interaction Equation

Bergfelt and Leiva-Aravena (1984) proposed the following equation for the interaction
between the buckling modes described earlier:
1 1 1
= + (6)
τ cr ,i τ cr ,l τ cr ,g
where τcr,i is the critical stress due to interaction between local and global buckling modes.

Equation 6 does not consider the steel yielding failure criterion or its interaction with the
buckling failure criteria. Furthermore, Equations 2 and 4 does not account for inelastic
critical shear stress which occurs if the critical stress of any mode exceeds 0.8·τy. To
overcome these defects, Elgaaly et al. (1996) and Galambos (1998) proposed the following
equation for the inelastic critical stress τcr,in in both the local and global buckling modes:
for τ cr ,l f 0.8 ⋅τ y : τ cr ,in ,l = 0.8 ⋅τ cr ,l ⋅τ y where τ cr ,in ,l ≤ τ y
(7)
for τ cr ,g f 0.8 ⋅τ y : τ cr ,in ,g = 0.8 ⋅τ cr ,g ⋅τ y where τ cr ,in ,g ≤ τ y

To calculate the critical stress of an inelastic interactive buckling mode, the values of τcr,in,l
and τcr,in,g are used in Equation 6 instead of τcr,l and τcr,g respectively.

Proposed Interaction Equation

Another interaction equation which includes all the failure criteria has been proposed by El-
Metwally and Loov (1998) and Sayed-Ahmed (2001). The new equation takes the form:
n n n n
 1   1   1   1
  =  +  +  (8)
τ  τ  τ  τ 
 cr ,i   cr ,l   cr ,g   y
where τy, τcr,l and τcr,g are defined by Equations 1, 2 and 4.

Equation 8 has a matchless mathematical property: it acquires the least value of the 3 limits
of the RHS as the upper limit for the resulting τcr,i in the LHS, regardless of the value of the
exponent n. A low value for n (e.g. n = 1) results-in τcr,i which is considerably less than the
least of the three limits. On the other hand, higher values for n will bring τcr,i closer to the
least of the three limits. The author recommends a value for n of 3.0 which will be valid for
the most common corrugation profiles (Sayed-Ahmed 2001).

GEOMETRIC CHARACTERISTIC EFFECT ON WEB FAILURE MODES

Panel Width Effect

The interaction among the local and global buckling modes and the yield failure criterion for
trapezoidally corrugated plates with simply supported boundaries (steel flanges) is plotted in
Figs. 2 and 3 versus the panel width b. In these figures the same panel width is assumed for
both the “horizontal” and the “inclined” panels (i.e. a=b) which will be verified later.

E03ST26- 5
It is evident from Figs. 2 and 3 that global buckling mode governs the instability behaviour
for significantly small corrugation width b (dense corrugation). On the other hand, the local
buckling mode governs the behaviour for significantly large values of b. For most of the
practical values of the panel width, failure occurs due to an interaction between both the
buckling modes and the yield failure criterion.

250
τcr,g τcr,l
τy

200
Critical stress (MPa)

τcr,i
150

100

Fy=350 MPa
hw/tw = 250
50
β=a/b=1.0
α = 37o

0
0 200 400 600 800 1000
Panel width (mm)

250
τcr,g τcr,l
τy

200

τcr,i
Critical stress (MPa)

150

100

Fy=350 MPa
hw/tw = 250
50
β=a/b=1.0
α = 25o

0
0 200 400 600 800 1000
Panel width (mm)

Figure 2. Interaction between failure criteria for corrugated web with hw/tw=250

E03ST26- 6
 250
τcr,g τcr,l
τy

200
Fy=350 MPa
τcr,i hw/t w = 500
Critical stress (MPa)

150 β=a/b=1.0
α = 25o

100

50

0
0 200 400 600 800 1000
Panel width (mm)

250
τcr,g
τcr,l
τy
200
Fy=350 MPa
τcr,i
hw/t w = 500
Critical stress (MPa)

150 β=a/b=1.0
α = 37o

100

50

0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800
Panel width (mm)

Figure 3. Interaction between failure criteria for corrugated web with hw/tw=500

Web Height to Thickness Ratio (hw/tw)

Comparing Fig. 2 (hw/tw = 250) and Fig. 3 (hw/tw = 500) reveals that the plate thickness
significantly affects the local buckling mode while slightly affect the global buckling mode.
For thinner plates (higher hw/tw), the local buckling mode governs then behaviour for a wider
range of the panel width b while the global buckling mode is almost unchanged.

E03ST26- 7
Ratio between the Inclined to the Horizontal Panel Width (β = a/b)

The ratio between the width of the inclined panel to that of the horizontal panel (defined
herein as β = a/b) has a significant effect on both the local and the global buckling modes.
Hence, this ratio also affects the interactive buckling mode. Three β ratios are investigated (β
= 0.5, 1 and 2). The results of this investigation are plotted in Figs. 4 and 5 where the critical
stress is plotted versus the panel width b for different β ratios.

250
Fy=350 MPa
τy hw/t w = 500
200 α = 37o

τcr,g
Critical stress (MPa)

β=2.0
150 τcr,l
β<=1.0

100
τcr,g
β=0.5 τcr,l
50 β=2.0

0
0 100 200 300 400 500
Panel width (mm)

250
Fy=350 MPa
τy hw/t w = 250
200 α = 37o
τcr,g
a/b=2.0
Critical stress (MPa)

150 τcr,l
a/b<=1.0

τcr,g
100
a/b=0.5
τcr,l
a/b=2.0
50

0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800
Panel width (mm)
Figure 4. Effect of the β ratio on the critical stress of the local and global buckling modes.

E03ST26- 8
If the β (a/b) ratio is less than 1.0, then the horizontal panel is wider than the inclined panel.
Thus, local buckling occurs in the horizontal panel and it governs the behaviour. On the other
hand for β is greater than 1.0, the inclined panel becomes wider than the horizontal panel and
thus, local buckling occurs in the inclined panel. For β=1.0, both panels will have the same
slenderness and local buckling is equally possible in any of them.

250
Fy=350 MPa
τy hw/t w = 500
200 α = 37o
β=2.0
Critical stress (MPa)

150 β=1.0

β=0.5
100

50

0
0 100 200 300 400 500
Panel width (mm)

250
Fy=350 MPa
τy hw/t w = 250
200 α = 37o
β=1.0
Critical stress (MPa)

150

β=2.0
100
β=0.5

50

0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800
Panel width (mm)

Figure 5. Effect of the β ratio on the critical stress of the interactive buckling modes.

E03ST26- 9
On the other hand, Fig. 4 also shows the pronounced effect of the β ratio on the critical stress
of the global buckling mode. It is evident from this figure that as the β ratio gets smaller, the
global buckling mode controls the failure for a wider range of the panel width b. This is true
because as the inclined panel gets smaller (β ratio gets smaller), the corrugations become
denser and hence failure is governed by global buckling through couple of adjacent panels.

The effect of the β ratio on the critical stress resulting from the interactive buckling mode is
shown in Fig. 5. This figure shows that the ideal ratio for β is 1.0 which gets the critical stress
as close as possible to the yield stress for a wider range of b. Thus, both the horizontal and
the inclined panels are preferably to have the same width, hence the same slenderness.

Effect of the Corrugation Angle

It is evident from Equations 1, 2, 4 and 8 that the corrugation angle α does not affect either
the yield failure criterion or the local buckling mode. It only affects the global buckling mode,
and thus, it also affects the interactive critical shear stress to some extent. This is also evident
from Fig. 6 where the critical stress resulting from the interactive buckling mode is only
affected by the variation of α in the zone of the global buckling mode.

250
Global buckling Local buckling
zone zone
200
Interactive critical stress (MPa)

α=60o

150
α=25o

100

hw/t w = 250
50 Fy = 350 MPa
β = 1.0

0
100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800
Panel width (mm)

Figure 6. Effect of the corrugation angle on the critical stress.

The interactive critical stress τcr,i obtained using Equation 8 is also plotted versus the
corrugation angle α for different panel widths in Fig. 7. It is clear from this figure that the
corrugation angle affects the interactive critical stress for small panel width b where the
behaviour of the corrugated web is governed by either pure global buckling or interaction
between global buckling and steel yielding. In Fig. 7, the drop which occurs in the critical
stress for large panel width (e.g. b=600 mm) occurs mainly because of the effect of local
buckling. For such case, the interactive critical stress τcr,i is almost constant through all values
of α indicating that the failure occurs by local buckling which is not affected by the change in
the corrugation angle.

E03ST26-10
 250

τy
200
Interactive critical stress (MPa)

b=200 mm

b=600 mm
150
b=100 mm
b=50 mm
100
b=25 mm
hw/t w = 250
50
Fy = 350 MPa
β = 1.0

0
5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 80 85 90
Angle of corrugation (rad)

Figure 7. Effect of the corrugation angle on the interactive critical stress.

The effect of the corrugation angle α on the global buckling critical stress τcrg is plotted in
Fig. 8 for hw/tw ratios of 250 and 500. Furthermore, the optimum value of the corrugation
angle at which τcrg reaches τy is plotted in Fig. 9. This figure may be used in design and/or
dimensioning of the corrugated plate to determine the optimum corrugation angle
corresponding to a certain chosen panel width b.

250
bw = 200 mm
τy
Critical stress - global buckling (MPa)

200

bw = 100 mm bw = 50 mm

150

bw = 35 mm

100

hw/t w = 250
50 Fy = 350 MPa
β = 1.0

0
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Corrugation angle (deg.)

Figure 8. Effect of the corrugation angle on the global buckling critical stress.

E03ST26-11
 250
bw = 200 mm
τy
Critical stress - global buckling (MPa)

200

bw = 100 mm

150 bw = 50 mm

100 bw = 35 mm

hw/t w = 500
50
Fy = 350 MPa
β = 1.0

0
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Corrugation angle (deg.)

Figure 8 (cont.) Effect of the corrugation angle on the global buckling critical stress.

300

250
b for global cr. str.=yiled (mm)

200

150
hw/t w = 500

100
hw/t w = 250

50

0
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Corrugation angle (deg)

Figure 9. Corrugation angle versus panel width for which τcr,g = τy

3-D PRESENTATION OF THE FAILURE MODES

The failure surface of a corrugated steel web plate is presented in 3-D versus the web height
hw and the panel width b in Fig. 10. Equation 8 is used to determine the value of the

E03ST26-12
interactive critical stress with the parameter n equal to 3. It can be seen from this figure that
steel yielding only occurs for small values of hw. For deeper web, interaction between
yielding and buckling governs the failure criteria. The mode of buckling also depends on the
panel width as mentioned earlier: panels with small width exhibit global buckling while
larger panels exhibit local buckling.

α = 37o τcr,i (MPa)

tw = 4 mm
fy = 350 MPa
E = 200 GPa
Yield

Global Local
buckling buckling

b (mm) hw (mm)

α = 37o τcr,i (MPa)

tw = 8 mm
fy = 350 MPa
E = 200 GPa
Yield

Local
buckling

Global
buckling

b (mm) hw (mm)

Figure 10. 3-D presentation of the failure surface for corrugated steel web plates

E03ST26-13
 CONCLUSIONS

Girders with corrugated steel webs have been recently used for different bridges with a height
to thickness ratio of the web reaching 450. The flexural behaviour of the new girders is
distinct where the corrugated web has no contribution what-so-ever to the moment capacity
of the cross section. On the other hand, the web solely provides the girder’s shear capacity. It
was also evident that there is no interaction between the flexural and the shear behaviour of
corrugated steel web girders.

The corrugated steel web is subjected to pure shear stress state. Its behaviour is controlled by
shear buckling. Two modes of buckling are defined for these webs: local buckling and global
buckling modes. The critical shear stress for local buckling may be determined using the
classical isotropic plate theory. On the other hand, critical shear stress for global buckling are
obtained using an equivalent plate thickness and the orthotropic plate equations.

An interaction buckling mode between the local and global buckling modes may also exist.
Furthermore, interaction between the different buckling modes and the yield failure criterion
of the steel controls the failure of these web plates for almost all the practical range of its
geometric dimensions.

An interaction equation which defines the interactive failure mode of corrugated steel web
plates is proposed. The Equation is used to investigate the effect of the corrugated plate
geometric characteristics on its failure mode.

It was found that the panel width has the most sounding effect where it almost controls the
mode of buckling. An ideal ratio between the inclined panel width and the horizontal panel
width for trapezoidal corrugation profile is proposed to be 1.0. The corrugation angle is found
to affect only the global buckling mode and hence the interactive mode to some extent. A
design chart for choosing the optimum value of corrugation angle corresponding to any panel
width is introduced. Finally, a 3-D presentation of the interactive critical stress based on the
proposed interaction equation is introduced.

REFERENCES

Bergfelt, A. and Leiva-Aravena, L. 1984. Shear Buckling of Trapezoidal Corrugated Girder

Webs. Division of steel and Timber Structures, Chalmers University of Technology,
Gothenburg, Publication S 84:2, Sweden, 64p.
Cheyrezy, M. and Combault, J., 1990. Composite Bridges with Corrugated Steel Webs -
Achievement and Prospects. IABSE Symposium, Mixed Structures: Including New
Materials, IABSE Reports, Brussels, pp.479-484.
Easley, J. T. and McFarland, D.E., 1969. Buckling of Light-gauge Corrugated Metal Shear
Diaphragms. Journal of Structural Engineering, American Society of Civil Engineers
(ASCE), 95(7): 1497-1516.
Easley, J.T. and McFarland, D.E., 1975. Buckling Formula for Corrugated Metal Shear
Diaphragms. Journal of Structural Engineering, American Society of Civil Engineers
(ASCE), 101(7): 1403-1417.
Elgaaly, M., Hamilton, R.W. and Seshadri, A. 1996. Shear Strength of Beams with
Corrugated Webs. Journal of Structural Engineering, American Society of Civil
Engineers (ASCE), 122(4): 390-398.

E03ST26-14
Elgaaly, M., Seshadri, A. and Hamilton, R.W. 1997. Bending Strength of Steel Beams with
Corrugated Webs. Journal of Structural Engineering, American Society of Civil
Engineers (ASCE), 123(6): 772-782.
El-Metwally, A.S. and Loov, R.E. 1998. Prestressed Composite Girders with Corrugated
Steel Webs. Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Short and Medium Span
Bridges (SMSB V): Developments in Short and Medium Span Bridge Engineering’98,
Calgary, Canada, pp. 1175-1187.
El-Metwally, A.S. and Loov, R.E. 1999. Composite Prestressed Concrete Beams with
Corrugated Webs. Proceedings of the Annual Conference of the Canadian Society for
Civil Engineering (CSCE), Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, Vol. 1, pp. 305-314.
Galambos, T.V. 1998. Guide to Stability Design Criteria for Metal Structures, 5th ed., John
Wiley and Sons, Inc., New York, USA.
Johnson, R.P. and Cafolla, J. 1997. Corrugated Webs in Plate Girders for Bridges.
Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineering, Structures and Buildings, 123: 157-
164.
Lebon, J. 1998. Steel Corrugated Web Bridges - First Achievements. Proceedings of the 5th
International Conference on Short and Medium Span Bridges (SMSB V):
Developments in Short and Medium Span Bridge Engineering’98, CSCE, Calgary,
Canada, CD-Proceedings.
Sayed-Ahmed, E.Y. 2001. Behaviour of Steel and/or Composite Girders with Corrugated
Steel Webs. Canadian Journal of Civil Engineering, Vol. 28, No. 4, pp. 656-672.

List of Symbols

a,b corrugation panel widths

c projected length of one corrugation ‘wave’
d horizontal projection of the inclined corrugation panel width
E Young’s modulus of the steel
G shear modulus of the steel
h corrugation height
hw web height
Fy yield stress of the steel
kg global buckling mode coefficient
ks local buckling mode coefficient
Ix second moment of area of one corrugation wave length
s corrugation amplitude
tw thickness of the web plate
α corrugation angle
ν Poisson’s ratio
τy yield stress of steel under pure shear stress state
τcr,g critical shear stress in global buckling mode
τcr,i critical shear stress in an interactive mode
τcr,in inelastic critical shear stress
τcr,in,l inelastic critical shear stress for local buckling mode
τcr,in,g inelastic critical shear stress for global buckling mode
τcr,l critical shear stress in local buckling mode

E03ST26-15