Sti_ened steel box columns.

Part 2: Ductility evaluation

Tsutomu Usami1;_, Shengbin Gao2 and Hanbin Ge1
1
2

Department of Civil Engineering; Nagoya University; Chikusa-ku; Nagoya 464-8603; Japan

Structural Analysis Section; Japan Information Processing Service Co. Ltd; Tokyo 135-8388; Japan

SUMMARY
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the ultimate strength and ductility capacity of sti_ened
steel box
columns failed by local and overall interaction instability under a constant compressive axial force
and cyclic
lateral loading. In a companion paper, a _nite element formulation accounting for both geometrical
and material
non-linearity was developed to obtain cyclic hysteretic behaviour of such columns. In this paper,
the e_ect
of loading patterns on the cyclic inelastic behaviour is _rst studied; then, a parametric study is
carried out
to investigate the e_ects of ange plate width{thickness ratio parameter, column slenderness ratio
parameter,
sti_ener's equivalent slenderness ratio parameter, magnitude of axial load, and material type of
sti_eners on
the strength and ductility of the columns. Last but not least, empirical formulae of both the
ultimate strength
and ductility capacities are proposed for sti_ened steel box columns, and the limit values of various
parameters
for the required ductility demand are also discussed. Copyright ? 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
KEY WORDS: coupled instability; cyclic loading; ductility evaluation; elastoplastic large deformation
analysis;
modi_ed two-surface plasticity model; sti_ened steel box column; ultimate strength

1. INTRODUCTION
A companion paper by Ge et al. [1] presented an elastoplastic large deformation _nite
element
formulation considering both geometrical and material non-linearity to obtain cyclic
hysteretic behaviour of sti_ened steel box columns failed by local and overall interaction instability
under a
constant compressive axial force and cyclic lateral loading. Comparison of the analytical
and experimental results indicated that the modi_ed two-surface model (designated by 2SM in the
subsequent
description) developed at Nagoya University [2; 3] is a satisfactory model for predicting
the cyclic
hysteretic behaviour of both thin- and thick-walled steel box columns.
Galambos [4] pointed out that many failures of steel bridge piers during the 1995
HyogokenNanbu earthquake were attributed to loss of strength and ductility due to severe local
and overall
interaction instability. Therefore, the ultimate strength and ductility capacity are very
important
for such piers to survive severe earthquakes. Moreover, according to the current JRA code
[5]
revised in 1996, check of ultimate earthquake resistance of steel bridge piers should be
carried out
by non-linear dynamic analysis. It is well known that an accurate hysteretic model is
inevitably
Correspondence to: Tsutomu Usami, Department of Civil Engineering, Nagoya University, Chikusa-ku Nagoya
464-8603,
Japan.
_

Received 8 October 1999

Revised 17 February 2000
Copyright ? 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Accepted 25 April 2000

1708 T. USAMI, S-B. GAO AND H-B. GE

required in the non-linear dynamic analysis. And development of such a model also
requires the

ultimate strength and ductility of steel box columns under quasi-static loading.
In the past, research on the ultimate strength and ductility capacity of steel box columns
was
mainly limited to the tests [6]. However, the experimental means is far from covering
structural
parameters. With the rapid development of computer technique and accurate
constitutive law, obtaining the ultimate strength and ductility of steel columns by numerical methods attract
more and
more attention. For example, empirical formulae of the ultimate strength and ductility
have been
proposed for steel pipe columns by Gao et al. [7]. However, as for the numerical research
on
the ultimate strength and ductility evaluation of sti_ened steel box columns, little
research work is
available.
This paper aims to evaluate the ultimate strength and ductility capacity of sti_ened steel
box
columns failed by coupled instability. In current analysis, the 2SM is employed to model
material
non-linearity. In what follows, the e_ect of loading patterns on the cyclic inelastic
behaviour of steel
box columns is studied _rst. Then, an extensive parametric study is carried out to
investigate the
e_ects of the important parameters such as ange plate width{thickness ratio, column
slenderness
ratio, sti_ener's equivalent slenderness ratio, magnitude of axial load, and material type
of sti_eners
on the ultimate strength and ductility of the columns. As a result, some formulae are
proposed to
evaluate the ultimate strength and ductility capacity of sti_ened steel box columns, and
the limit
values of various parameters for the required ductility demand are also discussed.
2. EFFECT OF LOADING PATTERNS
As stated in the companion paper [1], such parameters as ange plate width{thickness
ratio parameter (Rf ), column slenderness ratio parameter (__), sti_ener's equivalent slenderness
ratio parameter
(__s), magnitude of axial load (P=Py), and material type of sti_eners are the main
parameters considered for the practical design. Therefore, they are taken into consideration in an extensive
parametric
study presented in this paper. Before we proceed to the presentations of the numerical
results of
parametric study, the e_ect of loading pattern is discussed here.
To investigate the e_ect of loading pattern on the ultimate strength and ductility capacity
of
sti_ened steel box columns, three loading patterns are considered, as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1(a)
represents a monotonic loading case, while Figures 1(b) and 1(c) illustrate cyclic loading
cases.
`One-side cyclic loading' means that upon unloading, the applied displacement will only
be reduced
to zero and no negative displacement is applied. In contrast, `two-side cyclic loading'
indicates that
Figure 1. Loading patterns.

Copyright ? 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Earthquake Engng Struct. Dyn. 2000; 29:1707{1722