PARAMETRIC AND ANALYTICAL STUDY OF HIGH-STRENGTH STEEL CELLULAR BEAMS

• Grant number: 24/12417-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Master's degree
• Start date: October 30, 2024
• End date: February 27, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Engineering - Civil Engineering - Structural Engineering
• Principal Investigator: Silvana de Nardin
• Grantee: Vítor Augusto Pazin
• Supervisor: Konstantinos Tsavdaridis
• Host Institution: Centro de Ciências Exatas e de Tecnologia (CCET). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: City University London, England
• Associated to the scholarship: 23/12901-4 - BEHAVIOR AND RESISTANT CAPACITY OF HIGH-STRENGTH STEEL CELLULAR BEAMS, BP.MS

Abstract

Steel cellular beams present sequential circular openings in the web, resulting in structural elements with superior properties such as greater bending stiffness to weight ratios, long-spanning, and service integration. In Brazil, studies of cellular beams are scarce and only recent; worldwide, studies of this type of beams have been largely limited to common strength steels. However, the use of high-strength steel (HSS) with yield strength exceeding 460 MPa in cellular beams is an unexplored and intriguing topic. The use of high-strength steel adds sustainable aspects due to the reduction of carbon footprint (less material utilized), less waste and steel consumption, and energy demand during the manufacturing process. Although the use of high-strength steel in cellular beams is pioneering from a structural and sustainability standpoint, the ABNT NBR 8800 (2008) standard does not consider them, nor does it consider cellular beams with normal properties. The Eurocodes EN 1993-1-1 (2022) and EN 1993-1-13 (2024) address high-strength steel and cellular beam design, respectively, but not in conjunction. The present research project aims to evaluate the behavior and resistance capacity of high-strength steel cellular beams in a simply supported configuration, aiming to investigate the influence of varying steel strength and geometric parameters on failure modes and structural behavior. For this, numerical modeling will be used through the ABAQUS® software. The representativeness of the numerical models was previously validated and showed excellent results. Based on the results of the parametric study, we aim to determine the impact of variations in steel strength and geometric parameters on the load capacity and overall behavior of cellular beams. Furthermore, the suitability of EN 1993-1-13 (2024) models for HSS cellular beams will be assessed.