Literature review of web crippling behaviour

A review of literature on the area of the behaviour of thin-walled coldformed steel structural members was carried out with an emphasis on the phenomenon of web crippling of beam members. Web crippling is a common mode of failure experienced by web elements of thin-walled beams under concentrated loads or reactions. Most of the studies done on web crippling behaviour are experimental and based on compression testing of beams to determine the ultimate web crippling strength. It has been identified that the theoretical investigation of web crippling behaviour is rather complicated due to localised collapse behaviour. However, some attempts have been made to develop theoretically based models to predict web crippling behaviour, and to obtain better understanding of the failure modes. Different theoretical studies, especially on elastic and plastic behaviour of plate elements were investigated with the intention of developing an analytical model to describe web crippling behaviour. It was found that almost all of the design codes around the world make design recommendations to predict the load at which web crippling would occur, based on equations obtained from web crippling tests conducted by various researchers.