Horizontally curved composite plate girders with trapezoidally corrugated webs

This paper is concerned with horizontally curved composite plate girders with trapezoidally corrugated webs. Finite element analysis using the computer package LUSAS is employed to investigate the behaviour and ultimate strength capacity of the girders. The presence of web openings of different proportions and their effects on the behaviour and ultimate strength of the girders are also investigated. Parameters that affect the behaviour of these girders are slenderness of the web d/td/t, web panel aspect ratio b/db/d, width to the depth of corrugation ratio bh/hbh/h and size of openings. Influence of these parameters on the collapse behaviour is examined. Results are obtained in terms of ultimate strength, failure mechanism and load–deflection curves from the finite element analyses and, some typical results are presented herein. An approximate method to compute the shear capacity of these girders is presented. Comparison of the results with those predicted using the finite element method established the accuracy of the proposed method.

Research highlights
► Behaviour of Horizontally curved composite plate girders.
► Use of trapezoidally Corrugated webs.
► Ultimate load capacity of Horizontally Curved Composite Plate Girders with Corrugated webs.
► Effect of web openings.
► A simple method to predict the shear strength.