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Equivalent Beam-Column Method to Estimate In-Plane Critical Loads of Parabolic Fixed Steel Arches |
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| Authors: | Jiangang Wei Qingxiong Wu Baochun Chen Ton-Lo Wang |
| Affiliation: | 1Associate Researcher Fellow, College of Civil Engineering, Fuzhou Univ., Fuzhou 350002, China. 2Dean, Professor, College of Civil Engineering, Fuzhou Univ., Fuzhou 350002, China. 3Professor, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Florida International Univ., Miami, FL 33174 (corresponding author). E-mail: wangt@fiu.edu |
| Abstract: | The objective of this paper is to investigate the characteristics of critical loads for parabolic fixed steel tubular arches. An advanced nonlinearity finite-element program, taking into account the geometric and material dual nonlinearity, is employed. The influence of nonlinearity and initial crookedness on arch critical load is discussed. It is found that the effect of rise-to-span ratio on the critical load of arch is significant. Therefore, a new equivalent beam-column method is proposed for estimating the corresponding in-plane critical loads of arch, in which a buckling factor K1 is employed to consider influence of rise-to-span ratio and a reduction factor K2 to consider the effect of initial crookedness. Pragmatic formulas and tabulated data are provided based on the present different Chinese design codes. It is proved that the presented method is sufficiently accurate to predict the in-plane critical load of parabolic fixed steel arch subjected to compression or to both bending and compression. |
| Keywords: | Steel Arches Buckling Beam columns Critical loads Finite element method |