Behavior of bridge girders with corrugated webs: (II) Shear strength and design

The current paper focuses on the shear strength of bridge girders with corrugated webs (BGCWs) using the realistic initial imperfection amplitudes. Firstly, the results of full-scale experimentally tested BGCWs, available in literature, are used to check the validity of the available design shear strengths. Secondly, they are checked using the same equations utilizing the interactive shear buckling strength formula, recently, proposed by the current authors to account for the realistic support condition at the juncture between the web and flanges which was found to be nearly fixed. However, the comparison indicated that the available design shear strengths in the literature are conservative and need to be improved. Hence, the ABAQUS software is used to construct a nonlinear finite element (FE) analysis, including geometric and material nonlinearities, on full-scale BGCWs failing by shear. To ensure the accuracy of the FE models, the models are verified using the available experimental results provided by other researchers. The available design shear strength formulae were in addition compared with the FE shear strengths of the corrugated webs. However, among the strengths using the proposed interactive shear buckling strength formula, the one adopting Sause and Braxtan (2011) [7] equation was found to be the most suitable. It was as well found that stocky corrugated webs cannot practically reach the yield shear strength. At the end, an illustrative example for the calculation of the shear strength of BGCWs using the currently proposed formula is provided.