STEEL I-BEAMS WITH VARYING SECTION; INVESTIGATION INTO OPTIMAL GEOMETRY
The way in which materials are currently used in building structures is not optimal: beams are commonly given a constant section along their length, whereas it could vary to map the internal forces in the beam. This would result in material savings, and reductions in their embodied environmental impact, but is often limited by the absence of an appropriate cost-effective fabrication method. This study was triggered by the work done by a rolling mill manufacturer who is developing a method to roll, economically, varying section steel I-beams. The choice of the dimensions varying has a direct impact on the complexity of the required rolling process. This paper presents an investigation into the relative weight savings achievable by allowing different sets of a beam section dimensions to vary. Bespoke varying section steel I-beams are found to yield significant reductions in material usage compared to constant catalogue section beams. For the configuration used for investigation, a 40％ reduction is obtained, a significant proportion of which results from using a constant section beam with dimensions optimally chosen for its particular use. Overall the results follow the law of diminishing returns: most of the savings are obtained by allowing one dimension to vary, and varying more than two dimensions only produces a marginal improvement. A rolling mill producing beams with varying flange thickness would yield the majority of the achievable savings for the two building typologies which, in the UK, consume the largest proportion of steel sections.
I-beam steel material-efficiency shape optimisation fabrication sustainability Eurocode
C. Thirion P. Greening S. Hanna P. Winslow
Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering, University College London, London, UK Bartlett School of Graduate Studies, University College London, London, UK Expedition Engineering, London, UK
国际会议
Seventh International Conference on Advances in Steel Structures(第七届国际钢结构进展会议 ICSS2012)
南京
英文
77-85
2012-04-14（万方平台首次上网日期，不代表论文的发表时间）