Parametric Studies and Design Rules for Local and Distortional Biaxial-Bending Capacity of Cold-Formed Steel Storage-Rack Uprights

Shape optimisation of singly-symmetric cold-formed steel purlins

“…The efficiency of the optimised purlins relative to the reference sections are now validated with FE analysis. FE analysis is a well mature numerical method to model the structural response of cold-formed steel elements (see [38][39][40] for instance), with guidance provided in [41]. However, as computationally intensive, it is not always well suited for optimisation problems for which simplified design assumptions must often be made, as in the present paper (see Section 3).…”

“…The bending radius was added to all cross-sections, with the internal bending radius r taken as 1.0 times the wall thickness t. A positive or negative uniformly distributed pressure was applied to the top flange of the purlin, as shown in Figure 14, to simulate the inward and outward wind loads, respectively. S4R shell elements were used with a mesh size of 3 mm × 3 mm, arising from the mesh sensitivity analyses in [38]. Non-linear geometric and material Riks analyses were run.…”

“…MPa (Section 3.1) and 520 MPa [25], respectively. The strain-stress curve considered in these parts is shown in Figure 15 and extracted from the coupon tests performed on cold-formed steel samples of similar yield stress in [38].…”