engleski

Numerical parametric study on corrugated web built- up beams with pinned end supports

Cold-formed steel elements are commonly used in construction due to their advantages, such as material savings and reduced self-weight. Such advantages can be significantly enlarged by using built-up solutions. Such solutions have been presented in the literature over the past few decades. The most common way to assemble such elements are using screws or bolts. However, the developments in the welding processes also lead to other solutions, such as continuous (laser or MIG brazing) or discrete (spot welding). Corrugated web beams are one of these built-up solutions. On the basis of previous experimental and numerical studies on such built-up beams, it was concluded that the capacity of the cold-formed steel built- up steel beams with the corrugated web with fixed end supports is highly affected by the type of connections and the geometry of the system and components, especially its corrugated web and shear panels near supports. To find the optimal geometry of such beams with nominally pinned end supports, the paper starts by summarising the previous experimental investigations on cold- formed steel built-up corrugated web beams and, based on a calibrated numerical model, presents the parametric numerical investigation of such beams with different configurations. The influence of several parameters has been investigated, i.e. the influence of different end supports conditions for beams with single and double web, the influence of the number of spot welds on flanges, the influence of changing from discrete to continuous connections between beam components, the influence of the distance between spot welds on flanges, influence of the flange's thickness, the influence of corrugated web thickness and the influence of the shear panel thickness. The parametric study shows that changing end support conditions can significantly reduce the complexity of the analysed beam support and its cost without a significant decrease in beam performances related to its rigidity and bending capacity. The new solution presented of corrugated web beams with double corrugated web shows a significant contribution in flexural rigidity and bending capacity. Changing the type of connection between beam elements from discrete spot welding to continuous connection results in a higher capacity and rigidity of these beams. On the other hand, increasing the number of spot welds from 2 to 3 per corrugation between the web and the flanges can have a certain influence on the increase of the ultimate bending capacity while initial flexural stiffness remains almost the same. The distance between the spot welds on the flanges shows a very small influence on the behavior of the beam. Increasing the thicknesses of the beam elements can significantly increase the flexural stiffness and bending capacity of the beam, and the optimal beam configuration will be investigated in future studies.

built-up beams, cold-formed steel elements, spot welding, numerical analysis

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