Simplified nonlinear analysis of doubly corrugated cold‐formed steel arches

Abstract

Doubly corrugated steel arches are made by pressing transverse corrugations on trapezoidal cold‐formed steel sheets. Several studies show that these transverse corrugations may have a significant detrimental effect on the stiffness and load‐bearing capacity of the original trapezoidal profile. This paper presents an experimental campaign aimed at investigating the effects of transverse corrugations on the behaviour of arches. The campaign includes reduced tests on flat sheets and sheets with a single corrugation, as well as full tests on arches with spans ranging from 10 to 20 m. Subsequently, a simplified design procedure based on nonlinear 2D beam finite element models is proposed. The models account for the transverse corrugation effects by using intermediate rotational springs and equivalent beam section areas, which are calibrated from the results of the reduced experiments. A brief sensitivity study of the finite element results with respect to different modelling factors is conducted, and the different effects of the corrugation assessed. Finally, the simplified finite element models are validated by comparing the experimental and numerical force‐displacement curves, which show reasonably good agreement. However, further research is needed to refine and extend the proposed procedure.