Cross‐Section Effective Properties for the Practical Design of Doubly Corrugated Cold‐Formed Steel Arches

Abstract Doubly corrugated steel arches are made by pressing transverse corrugations on trapezoidal cold‐formed steel sheets. The paper presents a methodology for deriving the effective cross‐section properties of these sheets, accounting for the influence of the transverse corrugations. The arches are subjected to combined compression and bending; consequently, two different sets of properties are determined. Bending properties are obtained from experimental tests conducted in accordance with Eurocode 3 Part 1‐3, using sheets with a single transverse corrugation. Conversely, there is no standardized test for deriving the compression properties of sheeting with or without corrugations. Furthermore, conducting such experimental tests presents significant difficulties. Although the failure of the arches is primarily governed by bending, the study demonstrates that a rough estimation of the compression properties is insufficient to predict their load‐carrying capacities. Three calculation procedures for determining the effective compression area and centroid are presented and applied. These properties are then implemented in a practical design approach using nonlinear 2D beam finite element models. Their performance is assessed through experiments on full‐scale arches with spans ranging from 10 to 20 meters.