Numerical investigation of instabilities of steel members restrained by sandwich panels at elevated temperature

Abstract

AbstractSandwich panel constructions are getting popular from the second half of the 20th century however, the restraint provided by sandwich panels in regards to the instability of structural members was not investigated at elevated temperature, which became the scope of the research introduced in this paper. An experimental test series was conducted at the Department of Structural Engineering at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics in order to study the stability behavior of structural members restrained by sandwich panels at ambient and elevated temperature. In this paper 18 tests are introduced, in which centrally located HEA120 sections of a 3.00 m x 3.00 m sized supporting sandwich panel diaphragm were tested for axial compression. The results indicate, that the decrease in load bearing capacity of PIR panels is higher, that in the case of mineral wool panels. The data derived from experimental tests were used for developing a complex numerical model. The primary objective of this paper is the comparison of numerical results with the results derived from experimental testing. This research has been financially supported by the European Union, in the frame of the Research Fund of Coal and Steel (RFCS) program. The authors gratefully acknowledge the support.