Full-Range Compressive Stress-Strain Curves for Cold-Formed 304 Stainless Steel Circular Hollow Sections After Exposure to Vacuum Brazing

With the rapid development of microscale cellular structures, the small-diameter cold-formed welded stainless steel tubes have recently been used for creating the metallic lat- tice topologies with high mechanical properties. In this paper, to obtain the accurate material properties of the circular hollow section （CHS） under pure compression, a series of concentric compression tests are conducted on the millimeter-scale cold-formed 304 stainless steel circu- lar tubular stub columns after exposure to a vacuum brazing process. The tests cover a total of 18 small-diameter stub tubes with measured thickness-to-diameter ratios （t/D） from 0.023 to 0.201. A generalized three-stage nominal stress-strain model is developed for describing the compressive behavior of the post-brazing CHSs over the full strain range. This mechanical model is especially applicable to computer code implementation. Hence, an interactive computer pro- gram is developed to simultaneously optimize three strain hardening exponents （n1, n2, n3） in the expression of the model to produce the stress-strain curve capable of accurately replicating the test data. To further reduce the number of the model and material parameters on which this model depends, this paper also develops five expressions for determining the 2.5% proof stress （ap2）, n2, the ultimate compressive strength （σp3）, n3, and the ultimate plastic strain （p3%） for given experimental values of three basic material parameters （E0, σ0.01, σ0.2）. These expressions are validated to he effective for the CHSs with t/D 〉_ 0.027. The analytically predicted full-range stress-strain curves have generally shown close agreement with the ones obtained experimentally.

Dynamic material performance of cold-formed steel hollow sections： a state-of-the-art review

This paper presents a literature review focused on the material performance of cold-formed, carbon steel, hollow structural sections under impulsive （highly dynamic） loading. Impulsive loading, represented by impact and blast, is characterized by a very rapid, time-dependent loading regime in the affected members and materials. Thus, the effect of high-strain-rate loading is initially reviewed. Next the material toughness, an important energy-absorption property and one measure of a material＇s ability to arrest fracture, is considered by means of studying the Charpy V-notch behavior. The response of hollow sections under axial and lateral impact loading is then reviewed. Studies of blast on hollow sections, most of which fall under the categories of contact/near-field loading or far-field loading are presented. Under large-scale field blast experiments, cold-formed hollow sections have shown excellent behavior. Software for modeling blast loading and structural response, the latter including single degree of freedom analysis and explicit finite element analysis, is described and discussed.

Experimental study of hollow rectangular bridge column performance under vertical and cyclically bilateral loads

To investigate the seismic performance of hollow reinforced concrete （RC） bridge columns of rectangular cross section under constant axial load and cyclically biaxial bending, five specimens were tested. A parametric study is carried out for different axial load ratios, longitudinal reinforcement ratios and lateral reinforcement ratios. The experimental results showed that all tested specimens failed in the flexural failure mode and their ultimate performance was dominated by flexural capacity, which is represented by the rupture/buckling of tensile longitudinal rebars at the bottom of the bridge columns. Biaxial force and displacement hysteresis loops showed significant stiffness and strength degradations, and the pinching effect and coupling interaction effect of both directions severely decrease the structural seismic resistance. However, the measured ductility coefficient varying from 3.5 to 5.7 and the equivalent viscous damping ratio varying from 0.19 and 0.26 can meet the requirements of the seismic design. The hollow RC rectangular bridge columns with configurations of lateral reinforcement in this study have excellent performance under bidirectional earthquake excitations, and may be considered as a substitute for current hollow RC rectangular section configurations described in the Guideline for Seismic Design of Highway Bridges （JTG/T B02-01-2008）. The length of the plastic hinge region was found to approach one sixth of the hollow RC rectangular bridge column height for all specimen columns, and it was much less than those specified in the current JTG/T. Thus, the length of the plastic hinge region is more concentrated for RC rectangular hollow bridge columns.

Plate reinforced square hollow section X-joints subjected to in-plane moment

The static test of 13 square hollow section(SHS) X-joints with different β and different types of plate reinforcement under in-plane moment in brace was carried out. Experimental test schemes, failure modes of specimens, moment-vertical displacement curves, moment-deformation of the chord, and strain strength distribution curves were presented. The effect of β and plate reinforcement types on in-plane flexural property of SHS X-joints was studied. Results show that punching shear of chord face disappears, brace material fracture appears and concave and convex deformation of chord decrease when either collar plates or doubler plates were welded on chord face. Moment-vertical displacement curves of all specimens have obvious elastic, elastic-plastic and plastic stages. As β increases, the in-plane flexural ultimate capacity and initial stiffness of joints of the same plate reinforcement type increase, but ductility of joints decreases. With the same β, the in-plane flexural initial stiffness and ultimate capacity of doubler plate reinforced joints, collar plate reinforced joints, and unreinforced joints decrease progressively. Thickness of reinforcement plate has no obvious effect on in-plane flexural initial stiffness and ultimate capacity of joints. As thickness of reinforcement plate increases, the ductility of reinforced X-joints decreases. The concave and convex deformation of every specimen has good symmetry;as β increases, the yield and ultimate deformation of chord decrease.

Experimental Investigations on Web Crippling Failure Modes of Aluminum Hollow and Composite Tubes

In order to study the web-crippling behavior of aluminum hollow sectionsubjected to concentrated load, sixteen aluminum hollow tubes with different loadingconditions, bearing length and web slenderness ratios were tested. This paper alsodiscussed a method to improve the web crippling strength of the aluminum hollowsections by infilling the mortar as composite section, and four aluminum compositesections were tested. The literature has reported lots of web crippling tests, but there isfew reports on web crippling behavior of aluminum composite sections. Interior-Ground(IG) and End-Ground (EG) loading conditions were adopted, with the specimens placedon the ground to simulate the load of floor joists. Specimens were also placed on abearing plate with end (ETF) or interior (ITF) bearing load. The influence of supportingconditions, loading positions, bearing length and web slenderness ratios on web cripplingultimate bearing capacity and ductility of aluminum hollow sections was studied. Theenhancements of infilling mortar were also evaluated. The results obtained from theexperiments show that infilling the mortar in aluminum hollow tubes is an effectivemethod for enhancing the ultimate capacity of the web, especially for specimens underInterior-Ground (IG) condition. Based on the results of parameter research, this paperproposes a series of design formulas for well predicting web crippling ultimate capacityof aluminum hollow and composite tubes under four different loading and boundaryconditions.

Development of component stiffness equations for thread-fixed one-side bolt connections to an enclosed rectangular hollow section column under tension

The derivation and validation of analytical equations for predicting the tensile initial stiffness of threadfixed one-side bolts(TOBs),connected to enclosed rectangular hollow section(RHS)columns,is presented in this paper.Two unknown stiffness components are considered:the TOBs connection and the enclosed RHS face.First,the trapezoidal thread of TOB,as an equivalent cantilevered beam subjected to uniformly distributed loads,is analyzed to determine the associated deformations.Based on the findings,the thread-shank serial-parallel stiffness model of TOB connection is proposed.For analysis of the tensile stiffness of the enclosed RHS face due to two bolt forces,the four sidewalls are treated as rotation constraints,thus reducing the problem to a two-dimensional plate analysis.According to the load superposition method,the deflection of the face plate is resolved into three components under various boundary and load conditions.Referring to the plate deflection theory of Timoshenko,the analytical solutions for the three deflections are derived in terms of the variables of bolt spacing,RHS thickness,height to width ratio,etc.Finally,the validity of the above stiffness equations is verified by a series of finite element(FE)models of T-stub substructures.The proposed component stiffness equations are an effective supplement to the component-based method.

A toughness based deformation limit for X- and K-joints under brace axial tension

This study reports a deformation limit for the initiation of ductile fracture failure in fatigue-cracked circular hollow section （CHS） X- and K-joints subjected to brace axial tension. The proposed approach sets the deformation limit as the numerically computed crack driving force in a fatigue crack at the hot-spot location in the tubular joint reaches the material fracture toughness measured from standard fracture specimens. The calibration of the numerical procedure predicates on reported numerical computations on the crack driving force and previously published verification study against large-scale CHS X-joints with fatigue generated surface cracks. The development of the deformation limit includes a normalization procedure, which covers a wide range of the geometric parameters and material toughness levels. The lower-bound deformation limits thus developed follow a linear relationship with respect to the crack-depth ratio for both X- and K-joints. Comparison of the predicated deformation limit against experimental on cracked tubular X- and K- joints demonstrates the conservative nature of the proposed deformation limit. The proposed deformation limit, when extrapolated to a zero crack depth, provides an estimate on the deformation limits for intact X- and K-joints under brace axial loads.

Analysis and Calculation of Axial Stiffness of Tubular X-joints under Compression on Braces

This paper introduces the influence factors of axial stiffness of tubular X-joints. The analysis model of tubular joints using plate and shell finite element method is also made. Systematic single-parameter analysis of tubular X-joints is performed using Ansys program. The influences of those factors, including ratio of brace diameter to chord diameter （β）, ratio of chord diameter to twice chord thickness （γ）, ratio of brace wall thickness to that of chord （τ）, brace-to-chord intersection angle （θ）, and chord stress ratio, ratio of another brace diameter to chord diameter, in-plane and out-of-plane moment of braces, etc., on stiffness of tubular X-joints are analyzed. Two non-dimensional parameters-joint axial stiffness factor ηN and axial force capacity factor ωN are proposed, and the relationship curve of the two factors is determined. Computational formulas of tubular X-joint axial stiffness are obtained by multi-element regression technology. The formulas can be used in design and analysis of steel tubular structures.