Novel formula for the elastic critical moment of beams with corrugated web

This paper presents a novel analytical expression to determine the elastic lateraltorsional buckling resistance of I‐beams with corrugated web. The corrugated web beams have higher torsional stiffness than the flat web beams; therefore, the self‐weight of the beam can be reduced. The appropriate hand calculation methods to determine the elastic critical moment of corrugated web beams are based on the modification of warping constant of the cross‐section. In this paper, instead of modifying the warping constant the approximate expression is derived from the total potential strain energy of the beam using an energy method. During the solution, the beam is separated into three parts. The flanges are modelled as thin‐walled beams and the corrugated web is modelled as a thin equivalent orthotropic plate with uniform thickness. To assess the accuracy of the proposed analytical formula full shell finite element models were created in Abaqus software. The accuracy of the proposed expression is examined for sinusoidal and trapezoidal corrugation also. The results of the parametric study showed that the derived formula is accurate and applicable for elastic lateral‐torsional buckling analysis of I‐beams with web corrugation.