Failure mechanism and design method of reticulated shells considering joint damage accumulation effect under earthquake load

Abstract

Prefabricated joints have been widely used in steel structures because of their high construction efficiency, high quality and environmental protection. However, during the seismic design of the single-layer reticulated shells structure (SLRSS) connected by prefabricated joints, the prefabricated joints were generally simplified as hinged joints, and the engineering applications of the SLRSS with prefabricated joints was greatly limited. In this study, the numerical simulation and theoretical analyses were used to investigate the seismic performance of the semi-rigidly jointed SLRSS under the earthquake load. Based on ABAQUS, a finite element model (FEM) of the semi-rigid SLRSS was established, considering the joint damage accumulation, material damage accumulation, three-dimensional seismic action and initial defects. Four typical structure failure modes were obtained: member strength failure, joint strength failure, mixed strength failure, and dynamic instability. The effect of two joint parameters including joint stiffness and joint bearing capacity on the failure modes of the structure was obtained. Meanwhile, the corresponding failure mode identification method and control method were proposed, and the effectiveness of the proposed methods were verified by comparing the results of the numerical simulation results.