New prediction model for failure of steel sheeting subject to concentrated load (web crippling) and bending

Current design rules for steel sheeting do not give adequate insight in the sheetingʹs structural behaviour and are not always accurate. The current rules use three concepts: ultimate bending moment; ultimate concentrated load; and interaction. This paper presents a new analytical model to predict the ultimate load of first-generation sheeting under practical loading conditions. These practical conditions are defined by the ratios between bending moment and concentrated load as occurring in practice. Comparisons between the new model and experiments indicate that the new model reaches approximately the same accuracy as the design rules. The new model provides more insight in the structural behaviour of the sheeting and uses only one concept for determining failure. The new model is based on two existing models. Namely an analytical model developed in 1995 by Vaessen (On the elastic web crippling stiffness of thin-walled cold-formed steel sections, Graduate Thesis TUE-BKO-95-17, Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands) to predict the local web crippling deformation and a solution of Marguerreʹs (Zur Theorie der gekrümmter Platte grosser Formنnderung. Proc. Fifth. Int. Congress Appl. Mech., p. 93) simultaneous differential plate equations included in a book by Murray (Introduction to the Theory of Thin-walled Structures, Oxford Engineering Science Series 13, Clarendon Press, Oxford).