Yi (Frank) Zhu

BE
Postgraduate Research Student
Centre for Advanced Structural Engineering

Research project - Finite Element Analysis of Elliptical Hollow Sections and LiteSteel Beams

Supervisor: Dr Tim Wilkinson
Associate Supervisor: Prof Kim Rasmussen

Elliptical hollow section is a new generation of steel structure section. My project is to research on its loading capacity behaviour, especially its local buckling mode.

Past researches have been well done into the Circular Hollow Section and the Rectangular Hollow Section, about their buckling modes. The EHS seems to behave between these two sections, depending on the different ratio of its major axis and minor axis. My job is to test different buckling modes of the EHS with the changing of such ratio through finite element analysis. The key point is to verify if there is a critical elliptical size that the buckling mode changes from that of CHS to RHS, and what it is if the answer is yes. The other goal is to discuss the relationship of the behaviour between EHS and CHS, hoping to find out that each EHS, which has similar local buckling mode with CHS, behaves equally to a certain size of CHS, whose diameter can be expressed by some combination of the length of major axis and minor axis of the EHS. The project is beneficial to make some designing standards of this new shape of steel structure section.

LiteSteel beam is a new product of Smorgon Steel. As there are different yield stress values in the flange and the web, the aim of my project is to find out what really happens to the web under axial compression when we strain it further, after the web has reached yield but before the flange has reached yield, by using FEA simulations. Also, the goal is to optimize the design of this new product.

LiteSteel beam