Sep 2012, Volume 6 Issue 3
    

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  • RESEARCH ARTICLE
    Linjia BAI, Yunfeng ZHANG

    Steel structural frame is a popular structural form to cover large-span roof space and under high winds. Either part of the roof enclosure or the entire roof structure can be lifted off a building, particularly for low sloped roofs subject to wind-induced suction force. Collapse of roof could cause severe economic loss and poses safety risk to residents in the building. The buckling of members in a steel roof frame structure, which may lead to progressive collapse, may be dynamic in nature. This paper presents a fragility analysis of the collapse of steel roof frame structures under combined static and transient wind loading. Uncertainties associated with wind load change rate and member imperfections are taken into account in this study. A numerical example based on a Steel Joist Institute (SJI) K series joist was used to demonstrate the use of force limiting devices for collapse risk mitigation. For the presented fragility assessment of steel roof collapse, a Monte Carlo method combined with response surface approach was adopted, which greatly reduces the computation time and makes the Monte Carlo simulation feasible for probabilistic collapse analysis of steel roof frame structures.

  • RESEARCH ARTICLE
    Reidar BJORHOVDE

    A uniaxial tension test is commonly used to determine the mechanical properties of steel, but it has no meaning for the response of the material in a structure. The test was developed as a consensus solution by producers, fabricators, designers and code writers, to have a standard by which similar materials could be compared to a common base. It does not represent the actual behavior of the steel in a structure, and was never intended to do so. To study the true behavior of the structure and how the material responds it would be better to determine the strains and deformations that will take place during actual service condition. Such characteristics reflect the real behavior, whether in the elastic or inelastic range. If stresses or forces are needed, these are easily determined by the value of the strain and the relevant material modulus, along with the type of cross section, whether elastic or inelastic. The paper addresses the properties of a range of structural steels, how these are incorporated into design standards and how the standards define deformation characteristics and demands for bolted and welded connections.

  • RESEARCH ARTICLE
    Xiaobo REN, Odd M. AKSELSEN, B?rd NYHUS, Zhiliang ZHANG

    Welding residual stress is one of the main concerns for fabrication and operation of steel structures due to its potential effect on structural integrity. This paper focuses on the effect of welding residual stress on the ductile crack growth resistance of circumferentially cracked steel pipes. Two-dimensional axi-symmetry model has been used to simulate the pipe. Residual stresses were introduced into the model by using so-called eigenstrain method. The complete Gurson model has been employed to calculate the ductile crack growth resistance. Results show that residual stresses reduce the ductile crack growth resistance. However, the effect of residual stresses on ductile crack growth resistance decreases with the increase of crack growth. The effect of residual stress has also been investigated for cases with different initial void volume fraction, material hardening and crack sizes.

  • RESEARCH ARTICLE
    Shilin DONG, Yang ZHAO, Dong XING

    Modern long-span space structures, developed during the 1970s and 1980s, are light and effective structures based on new technologies and light-weight high-strength materials, such as membranes and steel cables. These structures include air-supported membrane structures, cable-membrane structures, cable truss structures, beam string structures, suspen-domes, cable domes, composite structures of cable dome and single-layer lattice shell, Tensairity structures and so forth. For the premodern space structures widely used since the mid-twentieth century (such as thin shells, space trusses, lattice shells and ordinary cable structures), new space structures have been developed by the combination of different structural forms and materials. The application of prestressing technology and the innovation of structural concepts and configurations are also associated with modern space structures, including composite space trusses, open-web grid structures, polyhedron space frame structures, partial double-layer lattice shells, cable-stayed grid structures, tree-type structures, prestressed segmental steel structures and so forth. This paper provides a review of the structural characteristics and practical applications in China of modern rigid space structures, modern flexible space structures and modern rigid-flexible combined space structures.

  • REVIEW ARTICLE
    Kaoshan DAI, Zhenhua HUANG

    Performing full-scale structural testing is an important methodology for researchers and engineers in the civil engineering industry. Full scale testing helps the researchers understand civil infrastructures’ loading scenarios, behaviors, and health conditions. It helps the engineers verify, polish, and simplify the structural design and analysis theories. To conduct a full-scale structural testing, sensors are used for data acquisitions. To help structural researchers and engineers get familiar with sensing technologies and select the most effective sensors, this study reviewed and categorized new sensing techniques for full-scale structural testing applications. The researchers of this study categorized sensors used for civil-infrastructure testing into traditional contact sensors and remote sensors based upon their application methodologies, and into cabled sensors and wireless sensors based upon their data communication strategies. The detailed descriptions of wireless sensors and remote sensing techniques and their on-site full-scale applications are presented.

  • RESEARCH ARTICLE
    Bing XIA, Yuching WU, Zhanfei HUANG

    In this paper, the co-rotational total Lagrangian forms of finite element formulations are derived to perform elasto-plastic analysis for plane steel frames that either experience increasing external loading at ambient temperature or constant external loading at elevated temperatures. Geometric nonlinearities and thermal-expansion effects are considered. A series of programs were developed based on these formulations. To verify the accuracy and efficiency of the nonlinear finite element programs, numerical benchmark tests were performed, and the results from these tests are in a good agreement with the literature. The effects of the nonlinear terms of the stiffness matrices on the computational results were investigated in detail. It was also demonstrated that the influence of geometric nonlinearities on the incremental steps of the finite element analysis for plane steel frames in the presence of fire is limited.

  • RESEARCH ARTICLE
    Min-Ho CHEY, Jae-Ung KIM

    In this study, the structural control strategy utilizing a passive tuned mass damper (TMD) system as a seismic damping device is outlined, highlighting the parametric optimization approach for displacement and acceleration control. The theory of stationary random processes and complex frequency response functions are explained and adopted. For the vibration control of an undamped structure, the optimal parameters of a TMD, such as the optimal tuning frequency and optimal damping ratio, to stationary Gaussian white noise acceleration are investigated by using a parametric optimization procedure. For damped structures, a numerical searching technique is used to obtain the optimal parameters of the TMD, and then the explicit formulae for these optimal parameters are derived through a sequence of curve-fitting schemes. Using these specified optimal parameters, several different controlled responses are examined, and then the displacement and acceleration based control effectiveness indices of the TMD are examined from the view point of RMS values. From the viewpoint of the RMS values of displacement and acceleration, the optimal TMDs adopted in this study shows clear performance improvements for the simplified model examined, and this means that the effective optimization of the TMD has a good potential as a customized target response-based structural strategy.

  • RESEARCH ARTICLE
    Qiang XU, Jianyun CHEN, Jing LI, Mingming WANG

    A new artificial boundary condition for time domain analysis of a structure-unlimited-foundation system was proposed. The boundary condition was based on the damping-solvent extraction method. The principle of the damping-solvent extraction method was described. An artificial boundary condition was then established by setting two spring-damper systems and one artificial damping limited region. A test example was developed to verify that the proposed boundary condition and model had high precision. Compared with the damping-solvent extraction method, this boundary condition is easier to be applied to finite element method (FEM)-based numerical calculations.

  • RESEARCH ARTICLE
    Xin CHENG, Xianzhong ZHAO, Yiyi CHEN, Zhenyu LI

    The main research purpose of this paper is to acquire a series of designed concept of “affordable housing” in key geographical areas of East China through the development of innovative, economical, flexible, reproducible and affordable residential houses using intensive steel solutions. Toward this goal, both the residential housing conditions and the development of steel residential building in China are widely investigated. Affordable housing in China is then, based on the investigation, defined as green humanized multi-storey housing comprised of medium-small type dwellings whose construction cost is not much higher than that of traditional reinforced concrete buildings and the maintenance cost is low. Taking this definition as a guiding ideology, detailed architectural and structural design of a steel affordable housing model in terms of a collective housing form with repeatable living units has been carried out. Comparisons of project cost and energy consumption between the designed steel residential housing and the corresponding reinforced concrete building show that the former is not more expensive and consumes less energy than the latter.

  • RESEARCH ARTICLE
    Hui ZHU, Yuching WU

    Steel is widely used for the construction of bridges, buildings, towers, and other structures because of its great strength, light weight, ductility, and ease of fabrication, but the cost of fireproofing is a major disadvantage. Therefore, the resistance of a steel structure to fire is a significant subject for modern society. In the past, for simplification, creep behavior was not taken into account in research on the resistance of a steel structure to fire. However, it was demonstrated that the effect of creep is considerable at temperatures that commonly reach 600°C and should not be neglected in this context. In this paper, a co-rotational total Lagrangian finite element formulation is derived, and the corresponding numerical model is developed to study the creep behavior of plane steel frames in fire conditions. The geometric nonlinearity, material nonlinearity, high temperature creep, and temperature rate of change are taken into account. To verify the accuracy and efficiency of the numerical model, four prototypical numerical examples are analyzed using this model, and the results show very good agreement with the solutions in the literature. Next, the numerical model is used to analyze the creep behavior of the plane steel frames under decreasing temperatures. The results indicate that the effect of creep is negligible at temperatures lower than 500°C and is considerable at temperatures higher than 500°C. In addition, the heating rate is a critical factor in the failure point of the steel frames. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that the deflection at the midpoint of the steel beam, considering creep behavior, is approximately 13% larger than for the situation in which creep is ignored. At temperatures higher than 500°C, the deformed steel member may recover approximately 20% of the total deflection. The application of the numerical model proposed in this paper is greatly beneficial to the steel industry for creep analysis, and the numerical results make a significant contribution to the understanding of resistance and protection for steel structures against disastrous fires.

  • RESEARCH ARTICLE
    Ali Fadhil NASER, Zonglin WANG

    Prestressed concrete segmental box girder bridges are composed of short concrete segments that are either precast or cast in situ and then joined together by longitudinally post-tensioning internal, external, or mixed tendons. The objectives of this study are to monitor the construction process of the external prestressing tendons to strengthen the bridge structure and perform a field load test to measure the strain and the deflection of the anchorage devices of the external prestressing tendons to determine the state of these devices after tension forces are applied. The monitoring process of the external prestressing tendons construction includes inspecting the cracks in the diaphragm anchorage and the deviation block devices before the tension forces are applied to the external tendons; measuring the deformation of the steel deviation cross beam during the tension process; measuring the deformation of the box girder after different levels of tension forces are applied; measuring the elongation of the external tendons in each level of the tension; and measuring the natural frequency of the external tendons after the tension process is complete. The results of the monitoring process show that the measured values of the deformation, the elongation, and the natural frequency meet the requirements. Therefore, there is no damage during the construction and the tensioning of the external prestressing tendons. A field load test is performed to the anchorage beam, the steel deviation block devices, and the steel deviation cross beam. The field load test results of the anchorage devices show that the values of the strains, the stresses, and the deflection are less than the respective allowable limit values in the requirements. Therefore, the anchorage devices have sufficient strength, and the working state is good after the tension forces are applied to the external prestressing tendons.

  • RESEARCH ARTICLE
    Xinqun ZHU, Hong HAO

    This paper presents an overview of development of an integrated structural health monitoring system. The integrated system includes vibration and guided-wave based structural health monitoring. It integrates the real-time heterogeneous sensor data acquiring system, data analysis and interpretation, physical-based numerical simulation of complex structural system under operational conditions and structural evaluation. The study is mainly focused on developing: integrated sensor technology, integrated structural damage identification with operational loads monitoring, and integrated structural evaluation with results from system identification. Numerical simulation and its implementation in laboratory show that the system is effective and reliable to detect local damage and global conditions of bridge structures.