Factors contributing to the transverse shear stiffness of bolted cold-formed steel storage rack upright frames with channel bracing members

Steel storage racks, commonly assembled from cold-formed steel profiles, are braced in the cross-aisle direction, where bracing members are typically bolted between two uprights forming an “upright frame”. Especially for high-bay racks and racks supporting the building enclosure, accurately determining the transverse shear stiffness of upright frames is essential in calculating the elastic buckling load, performing earthquake design and serviceability checks. International racking specifications recommend different approaches to evaluate the said transverse shear stiffness. The Rack Manufacturers Institute (RMI) Specification conservatively uses an analytical solution based on Timoshenko and Gere's theory while the European (EN15512) and Australian (AS4084) Specifications recommend testing to be conducted. Previous studies have shown that Finite Element Analyses (FEA), solely using beam elements, fail to reproduce experimental test results and may overestimate the transverse shear stiffness by a factor up to 25. This discrepancy is likely attributed to the local deformations occurring at the bolted joints. In this paper, a commercially used upright frame configuration has been modeled using shell elements in FEA and the response is verified against published experimental test results. A good correlation is found between the FEA and test results, concluding that shell elements are able to fully capture the behaviour of the upright frame. Future studies on the use of the FE model are also presented.

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Determination of Transverse Shear Stiffness of Sandwich Panels with a Corrugated Core by Numerical Homogenization

Materials ◽

10.3390/ma14081976 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 14 (8) ◽

pp. 1976

Author(s):

Tomasz Garbowski ◽

Tomasz Gajewski

Keyword(s):

Transverse Shear ◽

Shear Stiffness ◽

The Finite Element Method ◽

Homogenization Procedure ◽

Plate Structures ◽

Corrugated Board ◽

Energy Equivalence ◽

The Stability ◽

Global Stiffness Matrix

Knowing the material properties of individual layers of the corrugated plate structures and the geometry of its cross-section, the effective material parameters of the equivalent plate can be calculated. This can be problematic, especially if the transverse shear stiffness is also necessary for the correct description of the equivalent plate performance. In this work, the method proposed by Biancolini is extended to include the possibility of determining, apart from the tensile and flexural stiffnesses, also the transverse shear stiffness of the homogenized corrugated board. The method is based on the strain energy equivalence between the full numerical 3D model of the corrugated board and its Reissner-Mindlin flat plate representation. Shell finite elements were used in this study to accurately reflect the geometry of the corrugated board. In the method presented here, the finite element method is only used to compose the initial global stiffness matrix, which is then condensed and directly used in the homogenization procedure. The stability of the proposed method was tested for different variants of the selected representative volume elements. The obtained results are consistent with other technique already presented in the literature.

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Transverse shear stiffness of structural core sandwich

Composite Structures ◽

10.1016/0263-8223(94)90091-4 ◽

1994 ◽

Vol 27 (3) ◽

pp. 317-329 ◽

Cited By ~ 55

Author(s):

Tomas Nordstrand ◽

Leif A. Carlsson ◽

Howard G. Allen

Keyword(s):

Transverse Shear ◽

Shear Stiffness

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Modification of transverse shear stiffness of shell element

Lecture Notes on Numerical Methods in Engineering and Sciences - Finite Rotation Shells ◽

10.1007/978-90-481-8761-4_13 ◽

2009 ◽

pp. 365-395

Author(s):

K. Wiśniewski

Keyword(s):

Transverse Shear ◽

Shell Element ◽

Shear Stiffness

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Composite Laminate Stiffnesses and Their Sensitivities

20th Design Automation Conference: Volume 2 — Robust Design Applications; Decomposition and Design Optimization; Optimization Tools and Applications ◽

10.1115/detc1994-0133 ◽

1994 ◽

Author(s):

Bodo Geier ◽

Rolf Zimmermann

Keyword(s):

Composite Materials ◽

Transverse Shear ◽

Composite Laminate ◽

Shear Stiffness ◽

Efficient Algorithms ◽

Search Procedure ◽

Object Function ◽

Stiffness Matrices ◽

Derivatives Of ◽

Constrained Function

Abstract The great number of possible stacking orders to form laminates suggests to apply optimization, more frequently than usual, in the design of structures made of composite materials. One of the columns upon which optimization of structures is built is the mathematical search procedure for locating a minimum (or maximum) of a constrained function. Efficient algorithms will require the evaluation of derivatives of the object function as well as of the constraints. In that context the sensitivities of laminate stiffness matrices may be required. In order to meet such a requirement the derivatives with respect to both ply thicknesses and ply angles, of laminate stiffnesses, including transverse shear stiffness, will be presented in this report.

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Determining the transverse shear stiffness of steel storage rack upright frames

Journal of Constructional Steel Research ◽

10.1016/j.jcsr.2012.06.012 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 78 ◽

pp. 107-116 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

Benoit P. Gilbert ◽

Kim J.R. Rasmussen ◽

Nadia Baldassino ◽

Tito Cudini ◽

Leo Rovere

Keyword(s):

Transverse Shear ◽

Shear Stiffness

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Transverse Shear Stiffness of T300/5208 Graphite-Epoxy in Simple Bending

Journal of Reinforced Plastics and Composites ◽

10.1177/073168448200100404 ◽

1982 ◽

Vol 1 (4) ◽

pp. 335-352 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

P.E. Sandorff

Keyword(s):

Transverse Shear ◽

Shear Stiffness

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Experimental Study on Vertical Shear Behaviors of an Immersion Joint with Steel Shear Keys

Applied Sciences ◽

10.3390/app9235056 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 9 (23) ◽

pp. 5056

Author(s):

Yong Yuan ◽

Jianhui Luo ◽

Haitao Yu

Keyword(s):

Transverse Shear ◽

Shear Test ◽

Compressive Load ◽

Shear Stiffness ◽

Development Stage ◽

Shear Capacity ◽

Vertical Shear ◽

Shear Load ◽

Shear Keys ◽

Shear Behaviors

The vertical shear behaviors of an immersion joint with steel shear keys subjected to multidirectional loads are investigated in this paper. An experiment of an immersion joint model is carried out. Two kinds of compression–shear tests of the joint are considered in this experiment. The first kind of compression–shear test applies a specific vertical shear load and five different levels of longitudinal compressive loads on the joint. An additional compression–vertical shear destruction test is also conducted under the minimum longitudinal compressive load, wherein the vertical shear load is incrementally increased until failure of the joint. The other kind of compression–shear test is a bidirectional shear test, in which both the longitudinal compressive load and the transverse shear load are fixed, and the vertical shear load is gradually increased until reaching a target value. The results show that the shear force–displacement curves of the joint in any loading case can be divided into two stages: a non-linear development stage and a quasi-linear development stage. The vertical shear stiffness of the joint is found to increase with increasing longitudinal compressive load, and the existence of a transverse shear load enhances this effect. The ultimate shear capacity of the joint is smaller than the sum of the shear capacities of all vertical steel keys. In addition, the failure of the joint appears at the shear key on one sidewall of the joint.

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