• International journal of steel structures
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.1440-1463
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• 2018

The Wagner coefficient is a key parameter used to describe the inelastic lateral-torsional buckling (LTB) behaviour of the I-beam, since even for a doubly-symmetric I-section with residual stress, it becomes a monosymmetric I-section due to the characteristics of the non-symmetrical distribution of plastic regions. However, so far no theoretical derivation on the energy equation and Wagner's coefficient have been presented due to the limitation of Vlasov's buckling theory. In order to simplify the nonlinear analysis and calculation, this paper presents a simplified mechanical model and an analytical solution for doubly-symmetric I-beams under pure bending, in which residual stresses and yielding are taken into account. According to the plate-beam theory proposed by the lead author, the energy equation for the inelastic LTB of an I-beam is derived in detail, using only the Euler-Bernoulli beam model and the Kirchhoff-plate model. In this derivation, the concept of the instantaneous shear centre is used and its position can be determined naturally by the condition that the coefficient of the cross-term in the strain energy should be zero; formulae for both the critical moment and the corresponding critical beam length are proposed based upon the analytical buckling equation. An analytical formula of the Wagner coefficient is obtained and the validity of Wagner hypothesis is reconfirmed. Finally, the accuracy of the analytical solution is verified by a FEM solution based upon a bi-modulus model of I-beams. It is found that the critical moments given by the analytical solution almost is identical to those given by Trahair's formulae, and hence the analytical solution can be used as a benchmark to verify the results obtained by other numerical algorithms for inelastic LTB behaviour.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.12 no.6
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• pp.657-668
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• 2001

Fiber reinforced cementitious composites are nowadays widely applied in civil engineering. The postcracking performance of this material depends on the interaction between a steel fiber, which is obliquely across a crack, and its surrounding matrix. While the partly debonded steel fiber is subjected to pulling out from the matrix and simultaneously subjected to transverse force, it may be modelled as a Bernoulli-Euler beam partly supported on an elastic foundation with non-linearly varying modulus. The fiber bridging the crack may be cut into two parts to simplify the problem (Leung and Li 1992). To obtain the transverse displacement at the cut end of the fiber (Fig. 1), it is convenient to directly solve the corresponding differential equation. At the first glance, it is a classical beam on foundation problem. However, the differential equation is not analytically solvable due to the non-linear distribution of the foundation stiffness. Moreover, since the second order deformation effect is included, the boundary conditions become complex and hence conventional numerical tools such as the spline or difference methods may not be sufficient. In this study, moment equilibrium is the basis for formulation of the fundamental differential equation for the beam (Timoshenko 1956). For the cantilever part of the beam, direct integration is performed. For the non-linearly supported part, a transformation is carried out to reduce the higher order differential equation into one order simultaneous equations. The Runge-Kutta technique is employed for the solution within the boundary domain. Finally, multi-dimensional optimization approaches are carefully tested and applied to find the boundary values that are of interest. The numerical solution procedure is demonstrated to be stable and convergent.