• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.423-435
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• 2018

There are presently two general ways of accounting for hazardous metal creep in structural fire analyses: either we incorporate creep strains implicitly in hardening model ('implicit-creep' plasticity) or we account for creep explicitly ('explicit-creep' plasticity). The first approach is simpler and usually used for fast engineering applications, e.g., following proposals of EN 1993-1-2. Prioritizing this approach without consideration of its limitations, however, may lead to significant error. So far the possible levels of such error have been demonstrated by few researchers for individual structural elements (i.e., beams and columns). This paper, however, presents analyses also for selected beam-girder assemblies. Special numerical models are developed correspondingly and they are validated and verified. Their important novelty is that they do not only account for creep in individual members but also for creep in between-member connections. The paper finally shows that outside the declared applicability limits of the implicit-creep plasticity models, the failure times predicted by the applied alternative explicit-creep models can be as much as 40% shorter. Within the limits, however, the discrepancies might be negligible for majority of cases with the exception of about 20% discrepancies found in one analysed example.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.58 no.2
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• pp.277-300
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• 2016

Cold-formed steel (CFS) sections are becoming an increasingly popular solution for constructing floors in residential, healthcare and education buildings. Their reduced weight, however, makes them prone to excessive vibrations, increasing the need for accurate prediction of CFS floor modal properties. By combining experimental modal analysis of a full-scale CFS framed building and its floors and their numerical finite element (FE) modelling this paper demonstrates that the existing methods (based on the best engineering judgement) for predicting CFS floor modal properties are unreliable. They can yield over 40% difference between the predicted and measured natural frequencies for important modes of vibration. This is because the methods were adopted from other floor types (e.g., timber or standard steel-concrete composite floors) and do not take into account specific features of CFS floors. Using the adjusted and then updated FE model, featuring semi-rigid connections led to markedly improved results. The first four measured and calculated CFS floor natural frequencies matched exactly and all relevant modal assurance criterion (MAC) values were above 90%. The introduction of flexible supports and more realistic modelling of the floor boundary conditions, as well as non-structural $fa{\c{c}}ade$ walls, proved to be crucial in the development of the new more successful modelling strategy. The process used to develop 10 identified and experimentally verified FE modelling parameters is based on published information and parameter adjustment resulting from FE model updating. This can be utilised for future design of similar lightweight steel floors in prefabricated buildings when checking their vibration serviceability, likely to be their governing design criterion.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.258-265
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• 2014

By replacing the previous metal connector on the joints of timber structure, the GFRP reinforced laminated wooden pin was produced using a wooden material and Glass fiber reinforced plastic(GFRP) composite laminate. In addition, using the reinforced wooden pin, the tensile type shear strength test was conducted. Based on the result of the bending strength test of the reinforced laminated wooden pin according to the GFRP arrangement, a specimen(Type-A) with a single insertion of GFRP for each layer have shown the most favorable performance. Also, it was verified that densified specimen hot pressed for an hour at the temperature of $150^{\circ}C$ and with the oppression pressure $1.96N/mm^2$ have shown the improved performance of 1.57 times than the specimen without the densification. And in the bending strength test considering the load direction, edgewise have shown a higher performance of 3.51 times than the flatwise. A shear strength test was conducted using the Type-A reinforced laminated wooden pin which have shown a moderate performance on the test. Based on the test conducted by differentiating the type of the joint plate and the connector, compared to the specimen(Type-DS) applied with the drift pin and steel plate, the specimen( Type-WL) applied with the GFRP reinforced laminated wooden pin and GFRP reinforced wooden laminated plate have shown 1.12 times higher shear strength and also have shown an excellent toughness even after the maximum load.