• Steel and Composite Structures
• /
• v.25 no.6
• /
• pp.671-684
• /
• 2017

Elastic-plastic shear buckling behaviors of the web-post in a Castellated Steel Beam (CSB) with hexagonal web openings under vertical shear force were investigated further using Finite Element Model (FEM) based on a sub-model, which took the upper part of the web-post under horizontal shear force to represent the whole web-post under vertical shear force. A simplified design method for the web-post elastic-plastic shear buckling strength was proposed based on simulation results of the sub-model. Proper boundary conditions were applied to the sub-model to assure that its behaviors were identical to those of the whole web-post. The equation to calculate the thin plate elastic shear buckling strength was adopted as the basic form to build the design equation for elastic-plastic buckling strength of the sub-model. Parameters that might affect the elastic-plastic shear buckling strength of the whole web-post were studied. After obtaining the vertical shear buckling strength of a sub-model through FEM, the shear buckling coefficient k can be obtained through the back analysis. A practical calculation method for k was proposed through curving fitting the parameter study results. The elastic-plastic shear buckling strength of the web-post calculated using the proposed shear buckling coefficient k agreed well with that obtained from the FEM and test results. And it was more precise than those obtained from EC3 based on the strut model.

• Steel and Composite Structures
• /
• v.25 no.6
• /
• pp.639-648
• /
• 2017

Fracture energy values KV have been measured on cast steel, used in the container manufacture, by instrumented Charpy impact testing. This material has a large ductility on the upper transition region at $+20^{\circ}C$ and a ductile tearing with an expended plasticity before a brittle fracture on the lower transition region at $-20^{\circ}C$. To assess the fracture toughness of this material we use, the $K_{IC}$-KV correlations to measure the critical stress intensity factor $K_{IC}$ on the lower transition region and the dynamic force - displacement curves to measure the critical fracture toughness $J{\rho}_C$, the essential work of fracture ${\Gamma}_e$ on the upper transition region. It is found, using the $K_{IC}$-KV correlations, that the critical stress intensity factor $K_{IC}$ remains significant, on the lower transition region, which indicating that our testing material preserves his ductility at low temperature and it is apt to be used as a container's material. It is, also, found that the $J_{\rho}-{\rho}$ energetic criterion, used on the upper transition region, gives a good evaluation of the fracture toughness closest to those found in the literature. Finally, we show, by using the ${\Gamma}_e-K_{IC}$ relation, on the lower transition region, that the essential work of fracture is not suitable for the toughness measurement because the strong scatter of the experimental data. To complete this study by a numerical approach we used the ANSYS code to determine the critical fracture toughness $J_{ANSYS}$ on the upper transition region.

• Steel and Composite Structures
• /
• v.25 no.6
• /
• pp.693-704
• /
• 2017

In this research, a simple hyperbolic shear deformation theory is developed and applied for the bending, vibration and buckling of powerly graded material (PGM) sandwich plate with various boundary conditions. The displacement field of the present model is selected based on a hyperbolic variation in the in-plane displacements across the plate's thickness. By splitting the deflection into the bending and shear parts, the number of unknowns and equations of motion of the present formulation is reduced and hence makes them simple to use. Equations of motion are obtained from Hamilton's principle. Numerical results for the natural frequencies, deflections and critical buckling loads of several types of powerly graded sandwich plates under various boundary conditions are presented. The accuracy of the present formulation is demonstrated by comparing the computed results with those available in the literature. As conclusion, this theory is as accurate as other theories available in the literature and so it becomes more attractive due to smaller number of unknowns.

• Steel and Composite Structures
• /
• v.25 no.6
• /
• pp.717-726
• /
• 2017

In this paper, a new simple shear deformation theory for bending analysis of functionally graded plates is developed. The present theory involves only three unknown and three governing equation as in the classical plate theory, but it is capable of accurately capturing shear deformation effects, instead of five as in the well-known first shear deformation theory and higher-order shear deformation theory. A shear correction factor is, therefore, not required. The material properties of the functionally graded plates are assumed to vary continuously through the thickness, according to a simple power law distribution of the volume fraction of the constituents. Equations of motion are obtained by utilizing the principle of virtual displacements and solved via Navier's procedure. The elastic foundation is modeled as two parameter elastic foundation. The results are verified with the known results in the literature. The influences played by transversal shear deformation, plate aspect ratio, side-to-thickness ratio, elastic foundation, and volume fraction distributions are studied. Verification studies show that the proposed theory is not only accurate and simple in solving the bending behaviour of functionally graded plates, but also comparable with the other higher-order shear deformation theories which contain more number of unknowns.

• Steel and Composite Structures
• /
• v.29 no.4
• /
• pp.451-464
• /
• 2018

This paper presents some quasi-static tests for 4 mixed columns composed of CFST column and RC column. The seismic performance and failure mode were studied under low-cyclic revised loading. The failure mode was observed under different axial compression ratios. The hysteretic curve and skeleton curve were obtained. The effects of axial compression ratio on yield mechanism, displacement ductility, energy dissipation, stiffness and strength attenuation were analyzed. The results indicate that the failure behavior of CFST-RC mixed column with archaized style is mainly caused by bending failure and accompanied by some shear failure. The axial compression ratio performs a control function on the yielding order of the upper and lower columns. The yielding mechanism has a great influence on the ductility and energy dissipation capacity of specimens. Based on the experiment, finite element analysis was made to further research the seismic performance by ABAQUS software. The variable parameters were stiffness ratio of upper and lower columns, axial compression ratio, yielding strength of steel tube, concrete strength and rebar ratio. The simulation results show that with the increase of stiffness ratio of the upper and lower columns, the bearing capacity and ductility of specimens can correspondingly increase. As the axial compression ratio increases, the ductility of the specimen decreases gradually. The other three parameters both have positive effect on the bearing capacity but have negative effect on the ductility. The results can provide reference for the design and engineering application of mixed column consisted of CFST-RC in Chinese archaized buildings.

• Steel and Composite Structures
• /
• v.34 no.2
• /
• pp.261-277
• /
• 2020

The main objective of this research paper is to consider vibration analysis of vacancy defected graphene sheet as a nonisotropic structure via molecular dynamic and continuum approaches. The influence of structural defects on the vibration of graphene sheets is considered by applying the mechanical properties of defected graphene sheets. Molecular dynamic simulations have been performed to estimate the mechanical properties of graphene as a nonisotropic structure with single- and double- vacancy defects using open source well-known software i.e., large-scale atomic/molecular massively parallel simulator (LAMMPS). The interactions between the carbon atoms are modelled using Adaptive Intermolecular Reactive Empirical Bond Order (AIREBO) potential. An isogeometric analysis (IGA) based upon non-uniform rational B-spline (NURBS) is employed for approximation of single-layered graphene sheets deflection field and the governing equations are derived using nonlocal elasticity theory. The dependence of small-scale effects, chirality and different defect types on vibrational characteristic of graphene sheets is investigated in this comprehensive research work. In addition, numerical results are validated and compared with those achieved using other analysis, where an excellent agreement is found. The interesting results indicate that increasing the number of missing atoms can lead to decrease the natural frequencies of graphene sheets. It is seen that the degree of the detrimental effects differ with defect type. The Young's and shear modulus of the graphene with SV defects are much smaller than graphene with DV defects. It is also observed that Single Vacancy (SV) clusters cause more reduction in the natural frequencies of SLGS than Double Vacancy (DV) clusters. The effectiveness and the accuracy of the present IGA approach have been demonstrated and it is shown that the IGA is efficient, robust and accurate in terms of nanoplate problems.

• Steel and Composite Structures
• /
• v.34 no.2
• /
• pp.215-226
• /
• 2020

The aim of this study is to investigate free vibration of functionally graded porous nanocomposite rectangular plates where the internal pores and graphene platelets (GPLs) are distributed in the matrix either uniformly or non-uniformly according to three different patterns. The elastic properties of the nanocomposite are obtained by employing Halpin-Tsai micromechanics model. The GPL-reinforced plate is modeled using a semi-analytic approach composed of generalized differential quadrature method (GDQM) and series solution adopted to solve the equations of motion. The proposed rectangular plates have two opposite edges simply supported, while all possible combinations of free, simply supported and clamped boundary conditions are applied to the other two edges. The 2-D differential quadrature method as an efficient and accurate numerical tool is used to discretize the governing equations and to implement the boundary conditions. The convergence of the method is demonstrated and to validate the results, comparisons are made between the present results and those reported by well-known references for special cases treated before, have confirmed accuracy and efficiency of the present approach. New results reveal the importance of porosity coefficient, porosity distribution, graphene platelets (GPLs) distribution, geometrical and boundary conditions on vibration behavior of porous nanocomposite plates. It is observed that the maximum vibration frequency obtained in the case of symmetric porosity and GPL distribution, while the minimum vibration frequency is obtained using uniform porosity distribution.

• Advances in nano research
• /
• v.7 no.6
• /
• pp.443-457
• /
• 2019

In this investigation, dynamic and bending behaviors of isolated protein microtubules are analyzed. Microtubules (MTs) can be considered as bio-composite structures that are elements of the cytoskeleton in eukaryotic cells and posses considerable roles in cellular activities. They have higher mechanical characteristics such as superior flexibility and stiffness. In the modeling purpose of microtubules according to a hollow beam element, a novel single variable sinusoidal beam model is proposed with the conjunction of modified strain gradient theory. The advantage of this model is found in its new displacement field involving only one unknown as the Euler-Bernoulli beam theory, which is even less than the Timoshenko beam theory. The equations of motion are constructed by considering Hamilton's principle. The obtained results are validated by comparing them with those given based on higher shear deformation beam theory containing a higher number of variables. A parametric investigation is established to examine the impacts of shear deformation, length scale coefficient, aspect ratio and shear modulus ratio on dynamic and bending behaviors of microtubules. It is remarked that when length scale coefficients are almost identical of the outer diameter of MTs, microstructure-dependent behavior becomes more important.

• Earthquakes and Structures
• /
• v.18 no.6
• /
• pp.677-689
• /
• 2020

A building structural system of moment resisting frame (MRF) with concrete filled steel tubular (CFST) columns and wide flange H beams, is one of the most conveniently constructed structural systems. However, there were few studies on evaluating seismic performance of full-scale CFST columns under high axial compression. In addition, some existing famous design codes propose various limits of width-to-thickness ratio (B/t) for steel tubes of the ductile CFST composite members. This study was intended to investigate the seismic behavior of CFST columns under high axial load compression. Four full-scale square CFST column specimens with a B/t of 42 were carried out that were subjected to horizontal cyclic-reversal loads combined with constantly light, medium and high axial loads and with a linearly varied axial load, respectively. Test results revealed that shear strength and deformation capacity of the columns significantly decreased when the axial compression exceeded 0.35 times the nominal compression strength of a CFST column, P₀. It was obvious that the higher the axial compression, the lower both the shear strength and deformation capacities were, and the earlier and faster the shear strength degradation occurred. It was found as well that higher axial compressions resulted in larger initial lateral stiffness and faster degradation of post-yield lateral stiffness. Meanwhile, the lower axial compressions led to better energy dissipation capacities with larger cumulative energy. Moreover, the study implied that under axial compressions greater than 0.35P₀, the CFST column specimens with B/t limits recommended by AISC 360 (2016), ACI 318 (2014), AIJ (2008) and EC4 (2004) codes do not provide ultimate interstory drift ratio of more than 3% radian, and only the limit in ACI 318 (2014) code satisfies this requirement when axial compression does not exceed 0.35P₀.

• Steel and Composite Structures
• /
• v.36 no.1
• /
• pp.47-62
• /
• 2020

In this study, free vibration behavior of trapezoidal sandwich plates with porous core and two graphene platelets (GPLs) reinforced nanocomposite outer layers are presented. The distribution of pores and GPLs are supposed to be functionally graded (FG) along the thickness of core and nanocomposite layers, respectively. The effective Young's modulus of the GPL-reinforced (GPLR) nanocomposite layers is determined using the modified Halpin-Tsai micromechanics model, while the Poisson's ratio and density are computed by the rule of mixtures. The FSDT plate theory is utilized to establish governing partial differential equations and boundary conditions (B.C.s) for trapezoidal plate. The governing equations together with related B.C.s are discretized using a mapping- generalized differential quadrature (GDQ) method in the spatial domain. Then natural frequencies of the trapezoidal sandwich plates are obtained by GDQ method. Validity of current study is evaluated by comparing its numerical results with those available in the literature. A special attention is drawn to the role of GPLs weight fraction, GPLs patterns of two faces through the thickness, porosity coefficient and distribution of porosity on natural frequencies characteristics. New results show the importance of this permeates on vibrational characteristics of porous/GPLR nanocomposite plates. Finally, the influences of B.C.s and dimension as well as the plate geometry such as face to core thickness ratio on the vibration behaviors of the trapezoidal plates are discussed.