Lateral-torsional buckling analysis of wood composite I-beams with sinusoidal corrugated web

Buckling instability refers to a significant limit on the structures with I-section members, which causes severe decreasing of critical buckling load. Many mechanisms and techniques have been developed to increase the loading capacity of I-section structures, e.g., using composite materials or changing web geometry. This study aims at theoretically investigating the effect of geometry on the buckling capacity of wood composite I-beams with sinusoidal corrugated web. Experiments and numerical simulations are carried out to validate the theoretical predictions. The presented model is also reduced to flat web to validate with an existing study. Good agreements are observed from the validations. Parametric study is conducted to indicate the effects of web geometry on the critical buckling load. A significant increasing of buckling load (minimum 17.7%) is obtained between flat and sinusoidal web I-beams. Sensitivity study is carried out to evaluate the influences of web thickness, beam length and beam height on the loading capacity of sinusoidal I-beams. Optimal design is conducted to investigate the impact of the ratios of wavelength-to-beam length (aL) and wave amplitude-to-flange width (AT) on the critical buckling load and volume of wood corrugated I-beams. The findings in this study can be further used as guidance for the design of composite I-beams with sinusoidal corrugated web.