Structural Behavior of Prestressed Concrete Bridges with Corrugated Steel Webs

Corrugated steel plates have proved to be a promising alternative to flat plates, as the web of composite boxed bridges. From 1986, since the first prestressed composite bridge with corrugated steel web was constructed in France, several such bridges have been constructed all around the world. In practical design procedure of such bridges, simplified assumptions are usually used which need be assessed comprehensively. Here, the results of detailed finite element analyses demonstrate that while neglecting the contribution of corrugated web plates to the flexural rigidity of such superstructures could be considered as an acceptable approximation, the neglect of the contribution of the top and bottom concrete slabs in resisting shearing forces leads to unrealistic estimation of the shear stress distribution.