Numerical Simulation And Design Of Aluminum Members With Plain And Lipped Channel Sections

Aluminum structures are made of aluminum alloy material. Because the basic mechanical properties are similar with the steel structures, the aluminum structures has been more widely used. However, the research of aluminum structure in domestic started from the 80s of the 20th century, and data was not adequate, which directly affects the domestic aluminum alloy structure in the popularization and application in China.This paper describes the numerical simulation and design of aluminum column members, beam members and column-beam members of plain and lipped channel sections. Based on 28 tests of aluminum extruded column members, 8 beam members and 40 beam-column members, a non-linear finite element model (FEA) of plain and lipped channel sections was developed using ABAQUS. Overall and local geometric imperfections were considered. The numerical results were compared with the test results and it is shown that the numerical model can accurately predict the structural behavior of aluminum columns of plain and lipped channel sections.Parametric study was performed that included 440 members of aluminum alloy 6061-T6 and 6063-T5. The width-to-thickness ratio ranged from 20 to 120 and the slenderness ratio ranged from 50 to 200. The observed failure modes included heat affected zone (HAZ) softening, flexural buckling, flexural-torsional buckling, local buckling as well as distortional buckling.The design rules using direct strength method (DSM) for aluminum columns of plain and lipped sections were proposed. The experimental and numerical results were compared with the design strengths calculated using the proposed design rules and Chinese code for aluminum structures. Reliability analysis was performed. It is shown that the design strengths predicted by the proposed design rules are generally conservative.