Mechanical Performance of Crane’s Main Girders with Corrugated Webs

Girder with corrugated webs is a new form of structure with better performance and of high potential in crane’s metal structure. Firstly, the mechanical performance of this kind of structure was investigated qualitatively by the conventional bending beam theory. It showed that the strength and stiffness of girders with corrugated webs is lower than those with flat webs which are of similar sizes. Due to the great advantage in the shear performance, the height of the girder with corrugated webs can be increased properly to make up the decrease of its strength and stiffness, and thus, the design requirements can be met. Then, FEA method was utilized to simulate the mechanical properties of both middle-rail and bias-rail box girder with corrugated webs, and the above conclusion was validated. The result of FEA also indicated that the flange’s bending behavior of the box girder with corrugated webs was much more complicated. Hence, not only the overall bending stress but also the transverse bending stress should be considered in the design.