Ultimate Bearing Capacity Analysis Of Steel Tubular Scaffold With Couplers Based On Stiffness Reduction Method

Steel tubular scaffold with couplers has been used widely in construction for its particular advantages such as easy erection, versatility and economy. Its security is directly related to people’s safety of life and property. It’s significant for the design and security assessment of steel tubular scaffold with couplers that to research the ultimate bearing capacity of the steel tubular scaffold with couplers whose nodes are semi-rigid.The ultimate bearing capacity of the steel tubular scaffold with couplers with semi-rigid nodes was studied in this paper.The main contents are as follows:1. The differential equation of equilibrium was established by using the beam-column method firstly. And then, the stiffness matrix of beam-column element was deduced which considers the semi-rigid characteristics of the node. Meantime, the finite element analysis model of steel tubular scaffold with couplers was determined. Finally, the effects of semi-rigid characteristics on the steel tubular scaffold with couplers were analysized. The analysis shows that the proposed method is of high accuracy.2. Based on the strategy of elastic modulus adjustment, the stiffness reduction method (SRM) for ultimate bearing capacity analysis of steel tubular scaffold with couplers was established. The viration curvatures of the element bearing ratio(EBR), the degree of uniformity (DOU) of the EBRs were also investigated by the SRM. Compared with the traditional elasto-plastic incremental load method (EPILM), the results show that the SRM is of high accuracy and efficiency.