الفهرس 
FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSIS AND MODEL VERIFICATIONOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
This thesis investigated the elastic lateral-torsional buckling moment of partial and fully corrugated web profile steel beams under uniform moment. The different configurations of PCW, FCW and FW beams are covered in this research by varying the corrugation angle (θ) 45o and 60o, the corrugation ratio (β) from 0.2 to 0.95, beam depth (d) 900mm and 1200mm with 4, 6 and 8mm web thickness and span beam equals to 12 and 15m.
A finite element model is conducted to investigate the elastic lateral torsional buckling behavior using finite element software ABAQUS V6.14. A non-linear finite element analysis is preformed where non-linearity in material and the initial imperfection were considered.
An analytical expression is derived for the warping constant Cw,PCW of PCW steel beam and it was utilized to calculate the elastic lateral torsional buckling strength. Linear buckling analysis using finite element method (FEM) was performed to validate the proposed formula of the warping constant and the results show a good agreement.
The verification of finite element analysis results is performed by comparing the results obtained using the previous equations derived by Nguyen et al. [27], Moon et al. [9] and Ibrahim [30] for different geometries. It can be concluded that the difference between values is minimal which indicates the validity of the finite element model in thesis. The validity of the non-linear finite element analysis is measured by comparing the results with inelastic bending strength based on the procedure of Eurocode 3 [20] and the results show a good agreement.
7.2. Conclusions
1. The comparison between PCW and FCW steel beams in this thesis concludes that the increase percent of the elastic critical moment value of PCW is almost 50% of the increase value of FCW steel beam.
2. The gain in the elastic critical moment of PCW at partial corrugation ratio (i.e. α=1) is very reasonable than other partial corrugation ratios. The using of PCW steel beams with partial corrugation ratio equals to 50% (i.e. α=1) is more economical than FCW steel beams and has faster time in manufacturing.
3. The increase in the elastic critical moment of PCW steel beam can reach up to 13.30% larger than the elastic critical moment of FW steel beam within this study.
4. The increase in the warping constant of PCW steel beam can reach up to 17.80% larger than the warping constant of FW steel beam within this study.
5. The most influential parameter on the elastic critical moment of PCW steel beams was found to be the corrugation ratio (β) as indicated in parametric study.
6. The increase in corrugation angle (θ) from 45o to 60o leads to increase the elastic critical moment of PCW steel beam as indicated in parametric study.
7. It could be efficient to use PCW steel beams due to the reasonable increase value in the critical moment compared to FW steel beam and PCW steel beam has low fabrication cost compared to FCW steel web.
8. An analytical expression is derived for the warping constant Cw,PCW of PCW steel beam and it was utilized to calculate the elastic lateral torsional buckling strength
9. The finite element method (FEM) was performed to validate the proposed formula of the warping constant. A difference not more than 5% was observed between the proposed formula and FEM.
10. In non-linear finite element analysis, it is evident that the proposed procedure has good agreement with non-linear. FE results with the proposed procedure always resulting in conservative estimate of the Inelastic moment resistance of PCW steel beams.
11. It could be concluded that the use of PCW steel beams has some potential application due to the reasonable increase value in the elastic critical moment compared to FW steel beams.
7.3. Suggestions for Further Research
This thesis suggests future research works in the following fields:
1. The study of shear behavior for PCW steel beams.
2. The study of beam-to-beam and column-to-beam connection for PCW steel beams.
3. The study of PCW steel beams behavior under different loading cases.
4. The experimental work should be conducted to verify and measure the agreement with this study.