Experimental Study and Evaluation Method for the Buckling Strength of Scaffold

Abstract

The materials, structure and strength parameters of all the components of the scaffolds are regulated by safety standards to ensure the safety of construction site workers. Whenever a new scaffold member is developed, its design must follow the standard. Therefore, all scaffolds have the same structure. This study is fundamental to the establishment of a new method to evaluate a scaffold's performance in the buckling strength. Thus the buckling of scaffolds is often caused by the excessive weight of vertical loads. In the buckling modes, there is member buckling, as each story of the scaffolds curves, and total buckling, as the whole side of the scaffold caves in. Recent studies confirm that total buckling is often caused when a stiffening member in the vertical frame is shorting. It is known that shear rigidity of the horizontal frame can also influence buckling modes. However, the influence of shear rigidity of both vertical and horizontal frames on the scaffold's buckling modes has not been made clear. We therefore performed a numerical analysis to investigate this, using the shear rigidity of the vertical and the horizontal frames as parameters. In this study, a buckling experiment was executed in order to obtain fundamental data to help solve the problem of buckling scaffolds.