Shear Capacity of Beams with Curved Corrugated Webs

Beams with corrugated webs and flat plate flanges are extensively used in the construction industry for buildings and bridges. In the design of these beams, the longitudinal stiffness of the corrugated web is negligible and so the moment capacity is derived entirely from the flanges while the shear capacity of the beam is based on the shear strength of the web alone. Most beams with corrugated webs have trapezoidal shaped corrugations and so research in the past has mainly focused on this type of corrugation pattern. However, it may be possible to obtain a higher shear capacity with curved corrugated webs which may be either sinusoidal or circular in shape. In this paper, the commercial finite element analysis program Strand7 is used to conduct a non-linear analysis on beams with trapezoidal, sinusoidal and circular corrugated webs to determine the ultimate shear capacity. Corrugated webs with different thicknesses, amplitudes and wavelengths are analysed. The aim of this research is to compare the shear capacity between these different types of corrugations.