Behavior and Design of Trapezoidally Corrugated Web Girders for Bridge Construction: Recent Advances

By Mostafa Fahmi Hassanein, YongBo Shao and Man Zhou

Corrugated web girders (CWGs), used for bridge construction, differ in important ways from conventional prismatic girders. Behavior and Design of Trapezoidally Corrugated Web Girders for Bridge Construction details the behavior and design of CWGs in bridge construction and includes unique research into high-strength steel. The title gives a comprehensive review of the last decade in CWG design. In-depth explanations of key concepts are given — such as the accordion effect — that differentiate these girders from more conventional flat-webbed girders, and the authors also present specialized research into tubular flanged girders. The book distinguishes between prismatic and tapered CWGs, explains failure modes under both shear and flexure, and gives clear figures to illustrate these modes. The volume compares international building codes and offers recommendations for future research. Seven chapters cover –– An introduction to CWGs for bridge construction; Development of bridges with corrugated webs; Real boundary conditions between flange and web; Shear buckling behavior; Flexural buckling behavior; Recent erection methods and; Future research.

• Enables the reader to understand advances and future directions in the behavior and design of CWGs for bridge building
• Reviews advances in the behavior and design of CWGs
• Explains concepts which make these girders different from conventional flat-webbed girders
• Distinguishes between the behavior of prismatic and tapered CWGs
• Considers the failure modes of girders under shear and flexure, as well as ultimate strength
• Compares international codes — such as Eurocode 3 — in useful technical detail

• Language: English
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Release date: May 7, 2022
• ISBN: 9780323905473

Mostafa Fahmi Hassanein

Mostafa Fahmi Hassanein has completed his PhD at the age of 31 years from Tanta University, Egypt. Within his PhD study, he has participated in a doctoral steel course at Lulea University of technology, Sweden. He is currently "Professor of Structural Engineering" at the Department of Structural Engineering at Tanta University. His research focuses on the analysis and design of steel and composite structures, with the aim of improving the Design Codes and Standards that are currently used worldwide (e.g. EC3, EC4, AISC and AS 4100), to design more effective structures with minimised initial material costs and life-cycle costs. He has published more than 95 papers in international/Elsevier journals. His research works show his ability to collaborate with researchers from different disciplines and countries. He has served as a reviewer for different reputed international journals and conferences. He has also invited to the 8th European Solid Mechanics Conference (ESMC), Graz, Austria, 2012 as an "Invited Speaker". He has awarded the "State's Incentive Award in the Engineering Sciences" in 2015 from the Academy of Scientific Research and Technology, Egypt. Recently, he has awarded the "First Class Excellence Medal", from the Egyptian President in 2017. He is also a Consultant Engineer in the field of "Design of Steel Structures" in Egypt. He serves as an editorial board member for Thin-Walled Structures, ISSN No. 0263-8231, Elsevier. Based on his achievements, his biography has been accepted into Who's Who in the World, which is comprised of the top 3% of the professionals in the country. He also worked as a professor in the Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu, China, between July 2019 and Jun 2020. More recently, he has named in Stanford University List for Best 2% Scientists Worldwide, 2020 and 2021.

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Chapter 1

Introduction

1.1 General

Corrugated web girders (CWGs) are those girders with webs composing of a series of longitudinal and inclined folds. Because CWGs have many advantages over I-girders with transversely-stiffened flat webs (IPGs), they have been extensively used as bridge girders globally. For example, there is no interaction between shear and flexure taking place in CWGs thanks to the minor axial stiffness of the corrugated webs (CWs). This is often called in the literature as the accordion effect. Accordingly, prestressed concrete hybrid bridges require less prestressing compared to conventional prestressed concrete bridges. With respect to their fatigue behavior, CWGs have been found to own higher fatigue strengths, compared to IPGs, mainly because they do not utilize welded transversal stiffeners. Overall, using CWGs is currently spreading so fast due to their superior resistance to shear and out-of-plane stiffness. Since each fold in a CW is supported by adjacent folds, the stiffness in the out-of-plane direction of CW is greater than that of the flat web. Based on the above advantages, several investigations have focused on the response of CWGs to shear and flexural loadings.

On the other hand, the grades of structural steels are becoming much higher than before thanks to the great improvement recently taken place in the production process of steel materials accompanied by the need to design lighter structures. Hence, the term high strength steel (HSS) becomes familiar nowadays in the construction sector. HSSs are considered as those steels having a minimum yield/proof stress (Fy) of 460MPa. Recently, such materials have progressively been utilized in several engineering structures, especially as heavily loaded structural members because of their high strength-to-weight ratio. HSS provides weight savings, hence it results in reduced fabrication, transportation, and erection costs in modern construction. Moreover, in comparison with conventional steels of normal strength (NSSs), the application of HSS reduces the (1) overall consumption of the material and (2) release of carbon dioxide in society. For global development, steel is utilized in large masses in structural applications and with the fast growth of towns, with the New Capital of Egypt and Chengdu city of China are just examples, the need for structural steels becomes greater. However, with steel production, the energy consumptions and gas emissions are the major environmental concerns. According to World steel association (WSA), applying HSSs instead of NSSs reduces the steel material total release of 0.156 billion tons CO2 equivalents. China, the native country of most of this research group, was globally the highest country in steel production in 2015 by 803.8 million tons. This highlights the importance of replacing NSSs with HSSs in modern constructions in order to save the environment by efficiently decreasing the carbon dioxide discharges from steel production process. Accordingly, the literature shows that a considerable research has recently been directed to investigate steel elements formed from S460 and S690. Based on the above, several researches have been developed to combine the advantages of the HSSs and the CWGs to provide economical girders.

Additionally, the advances in structural and fabrication technologies have also led to the development of the hollow tubular flange girders, with the main aim of increasing the lateral-torsional buckling of these girders. However, a design engineer should ensure that the designed element is safe under different possible failure modes, from which the shear failure being one of them. This encouraged the current authors to investigate the effect of adding these tubular flanges to I-girders by suggesting using the hollow tubular flange plate girders rather than the conventional I-plate girders (IPGs). To the authors' best knowledge, there exist at least two practical engineering instances of bridge girders with tubular flange girders filled with concrete and CWs. The first one is the Maupre Bridge, built in france, which consists of a box girder of triangular section, a concrete-filled tubular bottom flange and a prestressed concrete deck. The other one is the 30 m span prestressed composite bridge with bottom tubular flange girders filled with concrete, which is built in China. This new type of composite structure consists of superimposed concrete slab with steel plate, corrugated steel webs, and rounded-ended rectangular tubular bottom flange filled with concrete. The excellent mechanical properties have been verified by a full-scale experiment.

Based on the above introduction, it seems that research on CWGs with different configurations and materials has been expanded to include many variables. The current research group, indeed, has contributed to the development of such elements, as will be seen in this book which aims to provide the designers and researchers with the recent development done in CWGs.

1.2 Objectives

The object of this book is to deepen the understanding of the behavior of CWGs used in bridges. Thus, the main objective is to develop different design procedures for the CWGs under different straining actions and materials used. Furthermore, the goals are extended to study the effect of web-to-flange juncture and recent development of erection methods. Also, the effect of using tubular flanges on the behavior of the CWGs is additionally considered.

1.3 Book organization

This book contains an introduction besides eight chapters. Chapter one is concerned with the introduction of the book. Chapter two provides the development of bridges with CWs. Chapter three focuses on the real boundary condition between flange and web of CWGs. Chapter four provides the shear buckling behavior depending on the results provided by the authors. Chapter five describes the flexural buckling behavior of the CWGs. In chapter six, the stress analysis of I-girders with concrete-filled tubular flange and CW is made. Chapter seven is providing the recent erection methods of the bridges formed with CWGs. Finally, chapter eight concludes the book by providing the conclusions, the recommendations, and the further studies to be investigated.

Chapter 2

Development of bridges with corrugated webs

2.1 General

Prestressed concrete bridges with corrugated steel webs (CSWs) are composite structures first developed in France [1]. In recent years, this structural type has begun to attract the attention of Chinese engineers. In China, the first prestressed concrete bridge with CSWs (Long-March Footbridge) was completed in 2005 [2]. To date, more than 40 bridges of this structural type have been constructed, some of which are detailed in Table 2.1. Indeed, China ranks second in the world in the use of prestressed concrete bridges with CSWs. With the accumulation of engineering experience and advances in design technology, the hybrid prestressed concrete bridge with CSWs has developed to cover long spans and complex types. For example, Zhuhai Qianshanhe River Bridge, which is a three-span continuous box girder bridge with 160 m in maximum span, is the longest bridge in the world in the same type of bridges [3]. The main navigational bridge of the Chaoyang Bridge in Nanchang, which is a composite box girder cable-stayed bridge with CSWs, is composed of six pylons and the stay cables are arranged in a single cable plane [4]. After more than 15 years of development, China has made tremendous progress in the theoretical research, design, and construction of this new type of structure. Many scholars from various universities and institutes in China have made extensive research on the basic mechanical properties (bending, shear, and torsion behavior), shear and torsional buckling, analysis of the shear connector, and the dynamical characteristics [5–13]. To expand the knowledge of this type of bridges worldwide, this paper summarizes the characteristics of prestressed concrete bridges with CSWs, and describes their basic properties, typical construction examples, and the new construction techniques in China.

Table 2.1

2.2 Mechanical feature

Fig. 2.1 shows the basic components forming a prestressed concrete bridge with CSWs. In this bridge type, the concrete webs of a conventional prestressed concrete bridge, which account for 20%–40% of the dead load, are replaced by CSWs. In addition to the substantial reduction in the dead load of the main girder, this system provides excellent structural characteristics due to the excellent mechanical properties of the CSWs. Folded steel webs have a high resistance to shear forces, while their resistance to axial forces or bending moments is almost negligible owing to the so-called accordion effect of CSWs. Accordingly, their axial rigidity is much smaller than that of the concrete slabs, so the prestressing force can act efficiently on the concrete flanges. The application of CSWs in prestressed concrete bridges is structurally rational because the prestressing efficiency is increased and the shear forces are adequately resisted. Further, the working effort is reduced, since formworks and reinforcement for the concrete webs are eliminated.

Figure 2.1 Prestressed concrete box girder with CSWs. CSWs , corrugated steel webs.

2.2.1 Bending behavior

As shown in Fig. 2.2, due to the accordion effect of box girders with trapezoidal CSWs, the axial rigidity of a CSW is much smaller than that of a concrete slab and it can be neglected from the engineering viewpoint. Thus, it is widely accepted that the bending moments are entirely carried by the concrete flanges, whereas the webs alone carry the shear forces which are distributed evenly over the web height [14–15]. Additionally, the quasi-plane assumption is valid in this kind of structures, that is, the concrete flange plane section in a girder bridge with CSWs remains nearly flat after bending