Vol. 7, No. 3, pp. 206-219 (2011)
BEARING CAPACITY AND ENERGY ABSORPTION CHARACTERISTICS OF
THIN-WALLED CIRCULAR STEEL TUBE AND ITS APPLICATION IN
RETRACTABLE ROOF STRUCTURES
Qinghua Han 1,2,*, Yan Lu 1, Zemin Xu 1 and Yafei Chang 1
1 School of Civil Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China
2 Key Laboratory of Coast Structure Safety (Tianjin University), Ministry of Education, Tianjin 300072, China
*(Corresponding author: E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
Received: 2 August 2010; Revised: 10 November 2010; Accepted: 25 February 2011
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ABSTRACT
This paper presents an experimental task in which the specimens are either single thin-walled circular stainless steel tubes or a honeycomb structure. The honeycomb structure is made up of the tubes with 4 configurations. Compressive loads are applied and deformations are recorded. The numerical and analytical analyses are also carried out with respect to the bearing capacity and energy absorption characteristics. It is shown that the average bearing capacity of single thin-walled circular steel tubes is lower than those tubes arranged in a honeycomb structure. The configuration of staggered thin-walled circular steel tubes with R/t values between 20 and 30 exhibits good bearing capacity. The configuration of aligned thin-walled circular steel tubes of R/t values between 30 and 45 exhibits good energy absorbing characteristic. The results obtained in this paper may be useful in designing a steel retractable roof structure with respect to passive collision protection.
KEYWORDS
Thin-walled circular steel tube, Honeycomb structure, Bearing capacity, Energy absorption, Aligned configuration, Staggered configuration
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