Еlastic critical moment for lateral-torsional buckling of steel beams with sinusoidally corrugated web

The beams with a sinusoidal web are increasingly used in industrial construction. Compared to the plane web beams, they have a greater flexural-torsional buckling capacity if all other conditions are equal (cross section, support devices, load and external factors). It depends on the geometric section properties, which are precisely defined for beams with a plane web, but not for corrugated web beams. This paper presents a method to approximate the elastic critical moment of simple sinusoidally corrugated web beam loaded with equal magnitude and opposite direction bending moments at the ends, using the equivalent section properties. The calculated critical moment values are compared with results obtained by existing analytical approaches and by the buckling analysis of finite element models.