Design of girders with trapezoidal corrugated webs under the interaction of patch loading, shear and bending

The corrugated steel plate has been used in many applications for a long time because of its favourable properties. Engineers have realized a potential application in bridge structures, too, especially hybrid bridges. Among modern bridge erection methods, incremental launching is one of the most competitive. When incremental launching is used to erect a bridge, the girder is subjected to a combined action of transverse force (F), shear force (V) and bending moment (M), resulting in a complex stress field and a combined loading situation. The current version of EN 1993-1-5, Annex D, includes design methods for the bending and shear resistance of corrugated web girders, but no recommendations for the patch loading resistance calculation or consideration of different interactions (F+V; F+M). Therefore, this paper focuses on the experimental and numerical investigations into the structural behaviour of corrugated web girders under all the aforementioned actions. Design proposals are developed to determine the patch loading resistance of corrugated web girders and two interaction equations are proposed to take into consideration the reduction in resistance due to the combined loading situation.