Shear strength and design of trapezoidally corrugated steel webs

Due to the accordion effect, corrugated steel webs are only able to resist shear force. The shear force in the web can cause three different buckling modes: local, global and interactive shear buckling. Although several researchers have been investigating it, the shear buckling behavior of the corrugated webs has not yet been clearly explained, this leads to conservative design. This paper presents the shear strength and design of trapezoidally corrugated steel webs. Firstly, global shear buckling equations are rearranged in order to derive the global shear buckling coefficient. The interactive shear buckling coefficient and the shear buckling parameter for corrugated steel webs are then proposed based on the 1st order interactive buckling equation. The inelastic buckling strength is determined from the buckling curves based on the proposed shear buckling parameter. A series of tests are conducted to verify the proposed design equations. From the test results of this study and those provided by previous researchers, it was found that the proposed shear strengths provide good predictions for the shear strength of the corrugated steel webs.