• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.705-724
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• 2013

The behaviour of steel column at elevated temperature is significantly different than that at ambient temperature due to its changes in the mechanical properties with temperature. Reported literature suggests that steel column may become vulnerable when exposed to fire condition, since its strength and capacity decrease rapidly with temperature. The present study aims at investigating the lateral load resistance of non-insulated steel columns under fire exposure through finite element analysis. The studied parameters include moment-rotation behaviour, lateral load-deflection behaviour, stiffness and ductility of columns at different axial load levels. It was observed that when the temperature of the column was increased, there was a significant reduction in the lateral load and moment capacity of the non-insulated steel columns. Moreover, it was noted that the stiffness and ductility of steel columns decreased sharply with the increase in temperature, especially for temperatures above $400^{\circ}C$. In addition, the lateral load capacity and the moment capacity of columns were plotted against fire exposure time, which revealed that in fire conditions, the non-insulated steel columns experience substantial reduction in lateral load resistance within 15 minutes of fire exposure.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.623-643
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• 2013

Concrete filled steel tubular members (CFST) become a popular choice for modern building construction due to their numerous structural benefits and at the same time aging of those structures and member deterioration are often reported. Therefore, actions like implement of new materials and strengthening techniques become essential to combat this problem. The application of carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) with concrete structures has been widely reported whereas researches related to strengthening of steel structures using fibre reinforced polymer (FRP) have been limited. The main objective of this study is to experimentally investigate the suitability of CFRP to strengthening of CFST members under flexure. There were three wrapping schemes such as Full wrapping at the bottom (fibre bonded throughout entire length of beam), U-wrapping (fibre bonded at the bottom throughout entire length and extended upto neutral axis) and Partial wrapping (fibre bonded in between loading points at the bottom) introduced. Beams strengthened by U-wrapping exhibited more enhancements in moment carrying capacity and stiffness compared to the beams strengthened by other wrapping schemes. The beams of partial wrapping exhibited delamination of fibre and were failed even before attaining the ultimate load of control beam. The test results showed that the presence of CFRP in the outer limits was significantly enhanced the moment carrying capacity and stiffness of the beam. Also, a non linear finite element model was developed using the software ANSYS 12.0 to validate the analytical results such as load-deformation and the corresponding failure modes.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.65 no.6
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• pp.657-678
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• 2018

Sandwich structures are well known for their use in aircraft, naval and automobile industries due to their high strength resistance with light weight and high energy absorption capability. Sandwich beams with soft core are very common and simple structures that are employed in day to day general use appliances. Modeling and analysis of sandwich structures is not straight forward due to the interactions between core and face sheets. In this paper, formulation of Super Convergent finite elements for analysis of the sandwich beams with soft core based on Euler Bernoulli beam theory are presented. Two elements, Eul4d with 4 degrees of freedom assuming rigid core in transverse direction and Eul10d with 10 degrees of freedom assuming the flexible core were developed are presented. The formulation considers the top, bottom face sheets and core as separate entities and are coupled by beam kinematics. The performance of these elements are validated by results available in the published literature. Number of studies are performed using the formulated elements in static, free vibration and wave propagation analysis involving various boundary and loading conditions. The paper highlights the advantages of the elements developed over the traditional elements for modeling of sandwich beams and, in particular wave propagation analysis.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.23-37
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• 2018

In this paper, seismic provisions related to built-up special concentrically braced frames (BSCBFs) are investigated under cyclic loading using non-linear finite element analysis of a single-bay single-story frame. These braces, which contain double angle and double channel brace sections, are considered in two types of single diagonal and X-braced frames. The results of this study show that current seismic provisions such as observing the 0.4 ratio for slenderness ratio of individual elements between stitch connectors are conservative in BSCBFs, and can be increased according to the type of braces. Furthermore, such increments will lead to decreasing or remaining the current middle protected zone requirements of each BSCBFs. Failure results of BSCBFs, which are related to the plastic equivalent strain growth of members and ductility capacity of the models, show that the behaviors of double channel back-to-back diagonal braces are more desirable than those of similar face-to-face ones. Also, for double angle diagonal braces, results show that the failure of back-to-back BSCBFs occurs faster in comparison with face-to-face similar braces. In X-braced frames, cyclic and failure behaviors of built-up face-to-face models are more desirable than similar back-to-back braces in general.

• Advances in materials Research
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.337-359
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• 2019

Shape Memory Polymer Composites (SMPC) have gained popularity over the last few decades due to its flexible shape memory behaviour over wide range of strains and temperatures. In this paper, non-linear bending analysis has been carried out for SMPC beam under the application of uniformly distributed transverse load (UDL). Simplified C⁰ continuity Finite Element Method (FEM) based on Higher Order Shear Deformation Theory (HSDT) has been adopted for flexural analysis of SMPC. The numerical solutions are obtained by iterative Newton Raphson method. Material properties of SMPC with Shape Memory Polymer (SMP) as matrix and carbon fibre as reinforcements, have been calculated by theory of volume averaging. Effect of temperature on SMPC has been evaluated for numerous parameters for instance number of layers, aspect ratio, boundary conditions, volume fraction of carbon fiber and laminate stacking orientation. Moreover, deflection profile over unit length and behavior of stresses across thickness are also presented to elaborate the effect of glass transition temperature (T_g). Present study provides detailed explanation on effect of different parameters on the bending of SMPC beam for large strain over a broad span of temperature from 273-373K, which encompasses glass transition region of SMPC.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.197-211
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• 2020

Application of the steel ring as a type of seismic fuse has been one of the efforts made by researchers in recent years aiming to enhance the ductility of the bracing systems which in turn, possesses various advantages and disadvantages. Accordingly, to alleviate these disadvantages, an innovative bracing system with a diamond scheme equipped with a steel ring is introduced in this paper. In this system, the braces and yielding circular damper act in parallel whose main functionality is to increase ductility, energy absorption and mitigate drawbacks of the existing bracing systems, in which the braces and yielding circular damper act in parallel. To conduct the experimental tests, specimens with three types of rigid, semi-rigid and pinned connections were built and subjected to cyclic loading so that their performance could be analyzed. Promisingly, the results indicate both great applicability and efficiency of the proposed system in energy absorption and ductility. Moreover, it was concluded that as the braces and damper are in parallel, the use of a steel ring with smaller size and thickness would result in higher energy absorption and load-resisting capacity when compared to the other existing systems. Finally, to assess the potential of numerically modeling the proposed system, its finite element model was simulated by ABAQUS software and observed that there is a great agreement between the numerical and experimental results.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.1019-1039
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• 2015

Shanghai Tower is a composite structure building with a height of 632 m. In order to verify the structural properties and behaviors in construction and operation, a structural health monitoring project was conducted by Tongji University. The monitoring system includes sensor system, data acquisition system and a monitoring software system. Focusing on the health monitoring in construction, this paper introduced the monitoring parameters in construction, the data acquisition strategy and an integration structural health monitoring (SHM) software. The integration software - Structural Monitoring/ Analysis/ Evaluation System (SMAE) is designed based on integration and modular design idea, which includes on-line data acquisition, finite elements and dynamic property analysis functions. With the integration and modular design idea, this SHM system can realize the data exchange and results comparison from on-site monitoring and FEM effectively. The analysis of the monitoring data collected during the process of construction shows that the system works stably, realize data acquirement and analysis effectively, and also provides measured basis for understanding the structural state of the construction. Meanwhile, references are provided for the future automates construction monitoring and implementation of high-rise building structures.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.877-895
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• 2015

Connections to circular hollow steel sections (CHS) are considered one of the most complex and time consuming connections in steel construction. Such connections are usually composed of gusset plates welded to the outside of the steel tube or penetrating the steel tube. Design guides, accounting for the effect of connection configuration on the strength of the connection, are not present. This study aims to investigate, through experimental testing and a parametric study, the influence of connection configuration on the strength of one sided branch plate-to-CHS members. A notable effect was observed on the behavior of the connections due to its detailing changes with respect to capacity, failure mode, ductility, and stress distribution. A parametric study is performed using the calibrated analytical model to include a wider range of parameters. The study involves 26 numerical analyses of finite element models including parameters of the diameter-to-thickness (D/t) ratio, length of gusset plate, and connection configuration. Accordingly, a modification to the formulas provided by the current design recommendations was suggested to include connection configuration effects for the one sided branch plate-to-CHS members.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.367-382
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• 2012

This paper is dedicated to the buckling behaviors of strengthened perforated plates under edge shear loading, which is a typical load pattern of steel plates in civil engineering, especially in plate and box girders. The square plates considered each has a centric circular hole and is simply supported on four edges in the out-of-plane direction. Three types of strengthening stiffeners named ringed stiffener (RS), flat stiffener (FSA and FSB) and strip stiffener (SSA, SSB and SSC) are mainly discussed. The finite element method (FEM) has been employed to analyse the elastic and elasto-plastic buckling behavior of unstrengthened and strengthened perforated plates. Results show that most of the strengthened perforated plates behave higher buckling strengths than the unstrengthened ones, while the enhancements in elastic buckling stress and elasto-plastic ultimate strength are closely related to stiffener types as well as plate geometric parameters including plate slenderness ratio and hole diameter to plate width ratio. The critical slenderness ratios of shear loaded strengthened perforated plates, which determine the practical buckling pattern (i.e., elastic or elasto-plastic buckling) of the plates, are also studied. Based on the contrastive analyses of strengthening efficiency considering the influence of stiffener consumption, the most efficient cutout-strengthening methods for shear loaded perforated square plates with different slenderness ratios and circular hole diameter to plate width ratios are preliminarily identified.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.539-566
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• 2013

This paper summarises the results of a numerical study on the non linear response of steel concentric braced frames under monotonic and cyclic loads, using force-based finite elements with section fibre discretisation. The first part of the study is addressed to analyse the single brace response. A parametric analysis was carried out and discussed to evaluate the accuracy of the model, examining the influence of the initial camber, the material modelling, the type of force-based element, the number of integration points and the number of fibers. The second part of the paper is concerned with the modelling issues of whole braced structures. The effectiveness of the modelling approach is verified against the nonlinear static and dynamic behaviour of different type of bracing configurations. The model sensitivity to brace-to-brace interaction and the capability of the model to mimic the response of complex bracing systems is analyzed. The influence of different approaches for modelling the inertia, the equivalent viscous damping and the brace hysteretic response on the overall structural response are also investigated. Finally, on the basis of the performed numerical study general modelling recommendations are proposed.