The Influence of Initial Imperfections on the Behaviour of Thin-Walled Girders Welded of Slender Plate Elements

conference paper

English

The objective of the paper is to analyse the influence of initial imperfections on the behaviour of thin-walled girders welded of slender plate elements. In parallel with theoretical analysis conducted at the Institute of Structural Mechanics of the Faculty of Civil Engineering in Brno, the behaviour of thin-walled girders is also experimentally studied in Prague. In theoretical analysis, the girder was modelled, using the geometrically and materially nonlinear variant of the shell finite element method, by the ANSYS programme. The analysis was performed for loading values relevant to usual working loads, i.e. to loading that governs fatigue behaviour. By way of sensitivity analysis it was studied to what extent the variability of initial imperfections was reflected in the variability of stresses in the crack prone areas of the girder. All input imperfections were considered to be random quantities. The statistical distributions were introduced according to both experimentally obtained results and data given in literature. Random realizations of input random quantities were simulated by the LHS (Latin Hypercube Sampling) method.

steel, girder, fatigue, random, imperfection, sensitivity, limit states

KALA, Z., KALA, J., ŠKALOUD, M., TEPLÝ, B.

2004

7. 5. 2004

Timisoara (Romania)

973-638-119-6

International Colloquium Dedicated to the 70th Anniversary of Professor Victor Gioncu

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