Time dependent uncertain free vibration analysis of composite CFST structure with spatially dependent creep effects

Abstract

• Uncertain free vibration analysis of composite concrete filled steel tubular structure is investigated. • Spatially dependent uncertain creep effect of the concrete core is considered. • Interval field model is adopted to model the spatially dependent uncertain parameters. • Robust bounds of natural frequencies of the structure can be determined. In this study, the time dependent free vibration analysis of composite concrete-filled steel tubular (CFST) arches with various uncertainties is thoroughly investigated within a non-stochastic framework. From the practical inspiration, both uncertain material properties and mercurial creep effect associated with such composite materials are simultaneously incorporated. Unlike traditional non-probabilistic schemes, both spatially independent (i.e., conventional interval models) and dependent (i.e., interval fields) interval system parameters can be comprised within a unified uncertain free vibration analysis framework for CFST arches. For the purpose of achieving a robust framework of the time-dependent uncertain free vibration analysis, a new computational approach, which has been developed within the scheme of the finite element method (FEM), has been proposed for determining the extreme bounds of the natural frequencies of practically motivated CFST arches. Consequently, by successfully solving two eigenvalue problems, the upper and lower bounds of the natural frequencies of such composite structures with various uncertainties can be rigorously secured. The unique advantage of the proposed approach is that it can be effectively integrated within commercial FEM software with preserved sharp bounds on natural frequencies for any interval field discretisation. The competence of the proposed computational analysis framework has been thoroughly demonstrated through investigations on both 2D and3D engineering structures.