Engineering Structures 30 (2008) 16591666

www.elsevier.com/locate/engstruct
Interactive shear buckling behavior of trapezoidally corrugated steel webs
Jongwon Yi
a
, Heungbae Gil
b
, Kwangsoo Youm
c
, Hakeun Lee
d,
a
Institute of Construction Technology, Hyundai Engineering & Construction, 102-4, Mabuk-Dong, Giheung-Gu, Yongin-Si, Gyounggi-Do, 446-716, South Korea
b
Structural Engineering Research Team, Expressway & Transportation Research Institute, 50-5, Sancheok-Ri, Dongtan-Myun, Whaseong-Si, Gyeonggi-Do,
445-812, South Korea
c
Technical Division, GS Engineering & Construction, 417-1, Duksung-Ri, Eedong-Myun, Chuin-Gu, Yongin-Si, Gyounggi-Do, 449-831, South Korea
d
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Korea University, 5-1, Anam-Dong, Sungbuk-Gu, Seoul, 136-701, South Korea
Received 4 February 2006; received in revised form 6 November 2007; accepted 8 November 2007
Available online 21 February 2008
Abstract
Trapezoidally corrugated steel plates have been used as the web of pre-stressed concrete box girder bridges to reduce dead load and increase
structural efciency. Due to an applied shear stress, the trapezoidally corrugated web can fail by three different shear buckling modes: local,
global, and interactive shear buckling. Local buckling involves a single panel, whereas global buckling involves multiple panels, with buckles
extending over the entire depth of the web. The interactive buckling is rather complex and is an intermediate type of shear buckling between local
buckling and global buckling, which involves several panels. In this study, a series of nite element analyses was carried out to study the geometric
parameters affecting interactive shear buckling modes and strength. Based on the analysis results, the interactive shear buckling strength formula
is proposed. The proposed formula agreed well with the experimental data.
c 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Corrugated web; Shear buckling; Interactive buckling; Shear strength; Finite element method
1. Introduction
A trapezoidally corrugated steel plate is composed of a
series of plane and inclined sub-panels, as shown in Fig. 1.
The primary characteristics of the corrugated steel plates are
negligible bending capacity and adequate out-of-plane stiffness.
To take advantage of these characteristics, the corrugated steel
plates have been considered as an alternative to conventional
concrete or steel girder webs. When used as the web, the
corrugated steel web carries the vertical shear, and the anges
carry the moment due to the accordion effect. Pre-stressed
concrete box girder bridges with a corrugated steel web
have been pioneered in France and extensively constructed in
Japan. The rst pre-stressed concrete box girder bridge with a
corrugated web was recently constructed in South Korea.
Research on the shear buckling behavior of corrugated plates
has been initiated by Easley and McFarland [1]. Since then,
numerous theoretical and experimental research on the buck-
ling characteristics and strength of corrugated steel webs have

Corresponding author. Tel.: +82 2 3290 3315; fax: +82 2 928 5217.
E-mail address: helee@korea.ac.kr (H. Lee).
been performed by Elgaaly et al. [24] and Abbas et al. [5] in
the United States and El-Metwally [6] and Sayed-Ahmed [7]
in Canada. Studies have also been conducted by Cafolla [8] in
Britain, Luo and Edlund [9] in Sweden, and Yoda et al. [10] and
Yamazaki [11] in Japan. The studies on geometric parameters
have been extensively carried out by Gil et al. [12,13] and Yi
et al. [14].
Despite signicant research, however, the shear buckling
behavior of trapezoidally corrugated webs has not been clearly
explained. Depending upon the geometric characteristics of the
corrugated web, three different shear buckling modes, namely,
local buckling, global buckling and interactive buckling are
possible. Local buckling represents the buckling of a sub-
panel, whereas global buckling is the buckling of the whole
web. Interactive buckling, which involves a few sub-panels,
occurs due to the interaction of local and global buckling.
The previous research [14] shows that the buckling failure of
the corrugated web is mainly governed by interactive shear
buckling. However, the causes of interactive shear buckling
have not been clearly dened, with much of the research
conservatively underestimating the shear buckling strength.
0141-0296/$ - see front matter c 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.engstruct.2007.11.009
1660 J. Yi et al. / Engineering Structures 30 (2008) 16591666
Nomenclature
a at panel width
b horizontal projection of the inclined panel width
c inclined panel width
d corrugation depth
h web height
corrugation angle

E
cr,L
elastic local shear buckling stress
E Youngs modulus of elasticity
Poissons ratio
t web thickness
k local shear buckling coefcient

E
cr,G
elastic global shear buckling stress
global shear buckling coefcient
D
x
longitudinal bending stiffness per unit length of
the corrugated web
D
y
transverse bending stiffness per unit length of the
corrugated web
I
x
moment of inertia about the axis along web height
I
y
moment of inertia about the neutral axis along
web height

cr,I
critical interactive shear buckling stress

cr,L
critical local shear buckling stress

cr,G
critical global shear buckling stress

y
shear yielding stress
length reduction factor = (a +b)/(a +c)

f e
shear buckling stress from numerical analysis
results

cr
critical shear buckling stress

s
shear buckling parameter

E
cr,I
elastic interactive shear buckling stress

ex
shear buckling stress from test results
C
L
coefcient unrelated with geometric parameters
for simplied local shear buckling stress
C
G
coefcient unrelated with geometric parameters
for simplied global shear buckling stress
C
I
= C
G
/C
L
Fig. 1. Trapezoidally corrugated web.
In this paper, the interactive buckling behavior of corrugated
steel webs was investigated. Geometric parameters, which
affect the buckling mode, were rst derived from local and
global buckling formulas. To study the effects of derived
Fig. 2. Local shear buckling mode.
parameters on interactive buckling modes, an elastic bifurcation
buckling analysis and a nonlinear analysis considering
geometric and material nonlinearities were performed using
three-dimensional nite element models of corrugated webs.
The analysis results were also used to propose an interactive
buckling strength formula. The proposed formula was veried
using the experimental data from the literature.
2. Shear buckling behavior of corrugated webs
2.1. Shear buckling mode
Local buckling occurs when a at sub-plate between vertical
edges has a large width to thickness ratio as shown in Fig. 2.
The buckling strength equation is taken from the classical plate
buckling theory [15] as follows:

E
cr,L
= k

2
E
12(1
2
)
_
t
a
_
2
, (1)
where E = Youngs modulus of elasticity, = Poissons ratio,
a = the maximum width of a at or inclined fold, t = the web
thickness, and k =the buckling coefcient dened according to
the boundary conditions and aspect ratio of the sub-panel.
In the case of dense corrugations, global buckling, as shown
in Fig. 3, becomes the dominant failure mode. The buckling
stress, calculated from the orthotropic-plate buckling theory,
was provided by Easley [1,16]. He derived a set of formulae
for the buckling loads from research on the general buckling
behavior of light-gage corrugated webs, and the buckling stress
is dened as:

E
cr,G
= 36
D
1/4
y
D
3/4
x
t h
2
, (2)
where D
x
and D
y
are the longitudinal and the transverse
bending stiffness per unit length of the corrugated web,
respectively, and is the global buckling coefcient. D
y
and
D
x
are calculated from EI
y
(I
y
= moment of inertia about the
neutral axis along web height) and EI
x
(I
x
=moment of inertia
about the axis along web height), respectively. The coefcient,
, changes from1.0 to 1.9 according to the boundary conditions
between the web and anges.
In theory, local buckling involves a single at panel, whereas
global buckling involves multiple panels, with buckles that may
J. Yi et al. / Engineering Structures 30 (2008) 16591666 1661
Table 1
Interactive shear buckling strengths
Researcher Interactive shear buckling strength Remarks
Bergfelt [18]
_
1

cr,I
_
=
_
1

E
cr,L
_
+
_
1

E
cr,G
_
The material inelasticity and yielding are not considered.
El-Metwally [6]
_
1

cr,I
_
2
=
_
1

E
cr,L
_
2
+
_
1

E
cr,G
_
2
+
_
1

y
_
2
Sayed-Ahmed [19]
_
1

cr,I
_
3
=
_
1

E
cr,L
_
3
+
_
1

E
cr,G
_
3
+
_
1

y
_
3
Abbas [5]
_
1

cr,I
_
2
=
_
1

cr,L
_
2
+
_
1

cr,G
_
2
The yielding of material can be considered using inelastic buckling strength.
Hiroshi [20]
_
1

cr,I
_
4
=
_
1

cr,L
_
4
+
_
1

cr,G
_
4
Design manual [21] Corrugated web is designed to have no local and global buckling as well as interactive buckling failure.
Fig. 3. Global shear buckling mode.
Fig. 4. Interactive shear buckling mode.
extend diagonally over the entire depth of the web. However,
test specimens with characteristics of both local and global
buckling modes had been observed [17]. These shear buckling
modes termed as interactive buckling are explained as a result
of the interaction between local and global buckling, as shown
in Fig. 4, but have never been claried in the literature.
The buckled shapes of the interactive buckling mode are not
as denitive as those of the local or global buckling mode but
vary depending on the geometry of the corrugated web [14].
To predict interactive buckling strength, different formulae
have been proposed as shown in Table 1. These formulae are
basically based on Eq. (3), which represents the interaction
among local buckling, global buckling and yield strength.
1
(
cr,I
)
n
=
1
(
cr,L
)
n
+
1
(
cr,G
)
n
+
1
(
y
)
n
, (3)
where
cr,I
= the interactive buckling strength,
cr,L
= the
local buckling strength,
cr,G
= the global buckling strength,
and
y
= the shear yield strength. Table 1 also shows
that interactive buckling is typically considered as either the
interaction between local and global buckling [18] or the
interaction between buckling and yielding [6,19]. However,
in this paper, the interactive shear buckling is dened as the
interaction between elastic local and global buckling without
consideration for shear yielding and inelastic buckling.
2.2. Geometric parameters affecting the interactive shear
buckling mode
To predict interactive shear buckling behavior, parameters
affecting interactive shear buckling need to be dened. The
geometric parameters of a corrugated web are a, d, t , h, c
and as shown in Fig. 1. Within these parameters, d, c and
are coupled. For corrugated webs used in bridge structures,
the width of the at panel (a) is almost equal to the width of the
inclined panel (c). Sayed-Ahmed [19] also suggested that the
ideal ratio for a/c is 1.0. At this ratio, the critical stress is close
to the yield stress of the steel for a wider range of a. Assuming
a to be equal to c, the geometric parameters are reduced to only
ve: a, d, t , h and .
Assuming that all the sides of the panels are simply
supported, the local buckling strength dened in Eq. (1) can
be rewritten as follows:

E
cr,L
=
_
5.34 +4
_
a
h
_
2
_

2
E
12
_
1
2
_
_
t
a
_
2
. (4)
Since a/h for a typical corrugated web is very small, 0.10.2,
(a/h)
2
can be neglected in Eq. (4). Then the theoretical local
1662 J. Yi et al. / Engineering Structures 30 (2008) 16591666
shear buckling strength becomes:

E
cr,L
=
5.34
2
E
12
_
1
2
_
_
t
a
_
2
. (5)
The global buckling strength given in Eq. (2) can also be
expressed as follows:

E
cr,G
= 36E
1
_
12
_
1
2
__
1/4
_
(d/t )
2
+1
6
_
3/4 _
t
h
_
2
, (6)
where =
a+b
a+c
. The corrugation angle of bridges, , is
typically about 25

35

, and when a is equal to c, the variable

can be considered constant because the changes in are less
than 5%. When d/t is larger than 8.66, the theoretical global
shear buckling strength can be simplied with less than 1%
difference as given below:

E
cr,G
= C
G
_
d
t
_
1.5
_
t
h
_
2
, (7)
where C
G
is a constant and is dened as C
G
=
5.045E
(1
2
)
1/4
()
3/4
.
Previous studies [14] have shown that interactive shear
buckling is affected by the ratio of the elastic local and global
buckling strengths. The ratio can be arranged as follows:

E
cr,G

E
cr,L
= C
I
_
a
h
_
2
_
d
t
_
1.5
, (8)
where
C
I
=
C
G
C
L
=
36E
1
[12(1
2
)]
1/4
1
(6)
3/4
5.34

2
E
12(1
2
)
= 0.6813
_
2
_
1
2
_

_
3/4
.
The coefcient, C
I
, has only one geometric parameter, ,
which is almost constant as shown earlier. Therefore, it can
be concluded that the interactive shear buckling strength is
affected only by the geometric parameters a/h and d/t . In
the following chapter, the effects of the relationship between
interactive shear buckling and the two geometric parameters,
a/h and d/t , is studied through nite element analysis.
3. Finite element analysis
Bifurcation buckling analysis, using the nite element
method, was rst performed to determine the elastic shear
buckling strength of the corrugated web and to investigate
the geometric parameters affecting interactive shear buckling
modes and strength. Next, a nonlinear nite element analysis,
which considered both the geometric and the material
nonlinearities, was carried out to verify the proposed theoretical
buckling formulae.
Fig. 5. Shear buckling analysis model.
Table 2
Boundary conditions of the analytical model
AB BC CD DA
Translation X (1) R F R F
Y (2) R R R R
Z (3) F F F R
Rotation X (1) F F F F
Y (2) F R F F
Z (3) F R F F
F: Free, R: Restrained.
3.1. Finite element analysis modeling
Previous analytical studies typically used the girder with
anges and stiffeners to examine the buckling behavior of
corrugated web plates [2,5,10,12]. However, the effects of the
ange and stiffeners on the shear behavior of a corrugated web
could not be completely ignored in these models. It was also
difcult to conrm the shear behavior of a pure corrugated web.
In this study, a corrugated web plate was only modeled.
The analytical model shown in Fig. 5 was built using the
general-purpose nite element program, ABAQUS [22]. In
the construction of the model, the following conditions were
considered.
Modeling under shear load (boundary and loading condi-
tions).
Number of elements per panel.
Inuence of the overall dimension (h and L).
State of pure shear.
S8R5 reduced integration thin shell elements were used to
model the corrugated plate. The ange and stiffeners were
modeled as simply support boundary conditions as given in
Table 2. In order to minimize the computational effort without
sacricing the accuracy of the results, the model used four
elements per panel, and the number of corrugation cycles
determined for the ratio, L/h, was kept greater than two. Load
was applied at the BC edge in three directions, as in Fig. 5.
The pure shear state of the web panel under the dened loading
and boundary conditions were checked by static analysis of the
model.
To verify the analytical model, shear buckling analyses
of a at plate were rst conducted under the boundary and
J. Yi et al. / Engineering Structures 30 (2008) 16591666 1663
Table 3
Geometric parameters of constructed bridges: a/h and d/t
Bridge a (mm) d (mm) b (mm) t (mm) h (mm) a/h d/t
Shinkai 250 150 200 9 1183 0.211 16.667
Matsnoki 300 150 260 10 2210 0.136 15
Hondani 330 200 270 9 3315 0.0995 22.222
Cognac 353 150 319 8 1771 0.199 18.75
Maupre 284 150 241 8 2650 0.107 18.75
Dole 430 220 370 10 2546 0.169 22
Ilsun 330 200 330 18 2292 0.144 11.111
loading conditions as mentioned above. The analytical results
corresponded well with the shear buckling stress calculated
from the classical plate buckling theory [15]. Youngs modulus
of 210,000 MPa and a Poissons ratio of 0.3 were used
throughout the analysis.
3.2. Elastic analysis
A parametric study was conducted using nite element
buckling analysis to determine the effects of the geometric
parameters, a/h and d/t , on buckling strength. According to
the literature survey shown in Table 3, a/h and d/t for actual
bridges are limited: a/h and d/t vary from 0.1 to 0.2 and
from 10 to 25, respectively. In this study, a/h and d/t were
conservatively assumed to be in the range of 0.10.3 and 530,
respectively, while other geometric characteristics held xed as
follows: = 30

, a = 300 mm and d = 150 mm. As a result,

the web height was varied from 1000 to 3000 mm, and t from
5 to 30 mm. A total of 315 models were constructed. About
two-thirds of those models were designed to have higher global
buckling strength than local buckling strength and the rest of
them had lower global buckling strength than local buckling
strength.
The analytical and theoretical strengths are compared in
Fig. 6. The horizontal axis represents the ratio of elastic global
buckling stress to elastic local buckling stress,
E
cr,G
/
E
cr,L
, in
a logarithmic scale. For each d/t , a/h varied from 0.10 to
0.30 at the increment of 0.01 all the way. Fig. 6 shows that the
interactive shear buckling strength is affected by the ratio of the
local to global buckling strength. When the ratio approaches
1.0, the strength is lower than both the local buckling and
global buckling strength. The geometric parameters, a/h and
d/t , also have a signicant effect on both shear buckling mode
and strength. However, as mentioned above, the relationship
between the buckling strength and the geometric parameters
cannot be easily expressed using a simple formula. The lines
named 1st order and 2nd order in Fig. 6 represent the 1st
(n = 1) and 2nd (n = 2) order interactive shear buckling
strength calculated using Eq. (9). Fig. 6 shows that the 1st-order
interactive shear buckling strength formula can safely estimate
the elastic shear buckling strength for a corrugated web.
_
1

E
cr,I
_
n
=
_
1

E
cr,L
_
n
+
_
1

E
cr,G
_
n
. (9)
Fig. 7 shows the relationship between the ratio of analytical
buckling stress to 1st-order interactive buckling strength and
Fig. 6. Comparison of the analytical results to the theoretical elastic buckling
strength.
Fig. 7. Comparison of the analytical results to the 1st-order interactive buckling
stress.
geometric parameters, a/h and d/t . Analytical buckling
stresses of some models are lower than the 1st-order interactive
buckling strength. This appears to be caused by the fact that
some of the analytical models cannot satisfy required geometric
stiffness as corrugated plates. Cafolla [8] suggested that a
reasonable lower bound for D
x
/D
y
is 50.0 while Easley [16]
suggested that D
x
/D
y
> 200.0. D
x
/D
y
> 200.0 is roughly
equivalent to d/t > 10.0. However, Fig. 7 suggests that the
limiting conditions should be dened not only for d/t , but also
for a/h, which is not considered in the calculation of D
x
/D
y
.
In addition to the requirement of d/t > 10.0, the corrugated
plates need to satisfy the following geometric condition: a/h <
0.2.
3.3. Nonlinear analysis
The inuence of geometric parameters, a/h and d/t , on
interactive buckling was studied through linear elastic buckling
analysis. A nonlinear analysis considering geometric and
material nonlinearities was carried out to study the effect
of geometric parameters on inelastic buckling. The boundary
and loading conditions were the same as those used in the
elastic analysis. The loading increment was less than 1% of
1664 J. Yi et al. / Engineering Structures 30 (2008) 16591666
Fig. 8. Material property for the nonlinear analysis.
Table 4
Geometric properties of the nonlinear analysis models
No. a/h d/t
f e
/
cr
(Elastic
analysis
results)

E
cr,L
(Theory)

E
cr,G
(Theory)

E
cr,G

E
cr,L
y-1
0.11 6.0 1.532
3577.66 707.09 0.198
i -1 724.48 140.20 0.194
e-1 377.89 72.95 0.193
y-2
0.15 8.0 0.738
2225.71 1241.97 0.558
i -2 272.65 148.32 0.544
e-2 144.21 78.32 0.543
y-3
0.29 25.0 0.947
780.84 9249.49 11.846
i -3 135.56 1459.80 10.768
e-3 86.76 928.80 10.705
y-4
0.18 15.0 0.713
762.88 1558.99 2.044
i -4 154.48 306.91 1.987
e-4 68.66 135.90 1.979
y-5
0.22 7.0 0.442
918.52 870.83 0.948
i -5 146.96 138.33 0.941
e-5 82.67 77.76 0.941
y-6
0.11 17.5 0.667
572.43 559.08 0.977
i -6 143.11 135.95 0.950
e-6 80.50 76.18 0.946
the ultimate load. The tri-linear elasticplastic stressstrain
relationship shown in Fig. 8 was used in the nonlinear analysis.
A total of 18 analytical models described in Table 4 were
developed by combining six different a/h and d/t ratios.
The rst two combinations of a/h and d/t were designed
to be governed by local buckling while the third and forth
combinations were governed by global buckling. The models
from the remaining two combinations had lower interactive
buckling stress than either local or global buckling stress. The
models also had different ratios of buckling stress to yield
stress. The elastic buckling stresses of y series models were
much higher than the material yielding stress. The i series
models had elastic buckling stresses similar to the material yield
stress. The elastic buckling stresses of the e series models
were about 50% of the material yield stress.
The buckling stresses from nonlinear analyses were
compared to the theoretical interactive buckling strengths in
Fig. 9. Comparison of the nonlinear analytical results to the interactive
buckling strengths.
Fig. 9. The horizontal axis represents the shear buckling
parameter,
s
, which is calculated using the buckling stress of
the governing buckling mode. The analysis results were not in
good agreement with the theoretical strength. This is because
the available formulae for interactive shear buckling strengths
are not derived to theoretically explain the interactive shear
buckling phenomena, but are derived to simply provide smaller
failure loads than predicted by local and global buckling modes.
The models in the yielding zone in Fig. 9 are the y series
models, which were designed to fail by material yielding,
and the buckling stress of those models was conservatively
predicted from existing formula. The buckling stress formulae
suggested by Hiroshi et al. [20] and Abbas et al. [5] were
too conservative in their predictions. For the i series models,
there were only small differences between critical buckling
stresses calculated by the different formulae, but the prediction
of the shear buckling strength was less accurate. For the
models whose buckling stress is less inuenced by interactive
buckling, shear buckling strength was predicted conservatively,
irrespective of buckling formulae. The predictions for the
strength of the models governed by the global buckling mode
were too conservative, while the strength of the models with
a large strength reduction due to interactive shear buckling
was overestimated. This tendency became more obvious in the
elastic region. These results indicate that the existing formulae
for interactive shear buckling cannot clearly describe interactive
shear buckling phenomena nor predict the shear strength.
Results from the nonlinear nite elements analysis results,
along with theoretical buckling stresses, are plotted as a
function of the shear buckling parameter,
s
, in Fig. 10.
The parameter
s
and the theoretical buckling stresses were
calculated using the elastic 1st-order interactive shear buckling
strength,
E
cr,I
, dened in Eq. (10).

E
cr,I
=

E
cr,L

E
cr,G

E
cr,L
+
E
cr,G
. (10)
The shear buckling parameters calculated using the elastic
interactive buckling stress of Eq. (10) are greater than ones
J. Yi et al. / Engineering Structures 30 (2008) 16591666 1665
Fig. 10. Results of nonlinear analyses.
calculated using either the elastic local or global buckling stress
because interactive buckling stress is smaller than local or
global buckling stress. As shown in Fig. 10, this leads to a better
estimation of the shear buckling strength of the corrugated web.
The buckling stress of the only one model was lower than the
theoretical buckling strength in the elastic range, but this model
could not satisfy the geometric requirements of a/h < 0.2 and
d/t > 10.0.
4. Comparison with published experimental data
Many shear buckling tests of trapezoidally corrugated webs
have been conducted. Abbas et al. [5] summarized the results
of numerous tests carried out in Europe and the United States.
Yamazaki [11] and Gil et al. [13] reported the results of six
tests conducted in Japan and nine tests conducted in Korea,
respectively. Both tests were carried out using large-scale test
specimens.
The evaluation of shear buckling tests conducted in the
United State and Europe showed that the available local
and global buckling formulae could overestimate the shear
capacity for corrugated webs. But, most of these shear buckling
tests were conducted on relatively small-scale specimens with
dimension and plate thickness signicantly smaller than what
would be used in bridge construction. The results of relatively
large-scale tests using a 4 mm (or 8 mm) thick web [5] showed
that the buckling stress is greater than the shear yielding stress.
Abbas et al. suggested that the cause of the discrepancy between
the theoretical and experimental results is initial imperfection,
and proposed that Eq. (11) be used as the nominal design
shear capacity of the corrugated plate until further research
results become available. However, Eq. (11) tends to estimate
the shear yielding stress and inelastic buckling stress too
conservatively.

n
=

_
_

cr,L

cr,G
_
2

2
cr,L
+
2
cr,G
. (11)
A plot of the normalized shear stress capacity,
ex
/
y
, versus
the shear buckling parameter,
s
is given in Fig. 11 for the
Fig. 11. Results of tests conducted in Japan and Korea.
large-scale test results conducted in Japan and Korea. The shear
buckling parameters for 6 tests (Yamazaki, I ) and 9 tests
(Gil et al., I ) were calculated by Eq. (1) or Eq. (2) depending
on the governing shear buckling mode, and the shear buckling
parameters for 6 tests (Yamazaki, II) and 9 tests (Gil et al.
II) were calculated by Eq. (10). Fig. 11 shows that the shear
buckling stress from Eq. (10) can safely estimate the buckling
stress for corrugated webs.
To account for the effects of inelasticity, residual stress,
and initial deformations, Eq. (12) was proposed in the Design
Manual [21]. The inelastic buckling stress given in Eq. (13) was
also suggested by Elgaaly et al. [2] when the elastic local and
global buckling stresses are greater than 80% of the shear yield
stress. As shown in Fig. 11, Eq. (12) provides a lower bound for
these test results.

cr

y
=
_
_
_
1
s
< 0.6
1 0.614(
s
0.6) 0.6 <
s

2
1/
2
s

2 <
s
(12)

I N
cr
=
_
0.8
y

E
cr
. (13)
Buckling stresses of two specimens shown in Fig. 11 were
lower than the theoretical buckling stresses though the shear
buckling parameter was calculated by Eq. (10). Local buckling
stresses of the specimens were theoretically lower than global
buckling stresses, yet the specimens were reported to be failed
by a global buckling mode [13]. The ratios d/t and a/h
were almost 10.0 and greater than 0.3, respectively. These
test specimens could not satisfy the geometric requirement of
a/h < 0.2 and d/t > 10.0.
5. Summary and conclusion
In this paper, the shear capacity of a trapezoidally corrugated
web was studied numerically by using elastic buckling analysis
and nonlinear analysis considering material and geometric
nonlinearities. The inuence of the geometric parameter on
interactive shear buckling was rst investigated, and the
1666 J. Yi et al. / Engineering Structures 30 (2008) 16591666
analytical results were compared to the strength from existing
theoretical interactive shear buckling formulae. The strength
suggested from the analysis was also compared to experimental
data.
The elastic buckling analysis results showed that the
interactive shear buckling mode and strength was not inuenced
by material inelasticity or yielding, but rather by the geometry
of the corrugated plate. The geometric parameters which affect
the interactive shear buckling were determined as a/h and
d/t . a/h < 0.2 and d/t > 10.0 were proposed as the
limit conditions for the corrugated webs. It was recommended
that Eq. (10) be used for the conservative estimation of the
elastic interactive shear buckling stress. It was also showed
that the existing interactive shear buckling formulae could not
accurately predict the behavior and strength of interactive shear
buckling.
The shear buckling stresses calculated by Eq. (10) were
compared with the published test results to examine the validity
of the proposed shear buckling stress. The proposed shear
buckling stresses were shown to conservatively estimate the
shear buckling stress of trapezoidally corrugated webs. The
comparison also showed that Eq. (12) can be effectively used
to predict the inelastic shear buckling stresses.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by a grant (05 construction core
C14) from the Construction Core Technology Program by
the Ministry of Construction & Transportation of the Korean
government. The authors wish to express their gratitude for the
nancial support. The opinions, ndings, and conclusions of the
paper are the authors and do not necessarily reect the views of
the sponsors.
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