Research On Deflection Of Simply Supported Castellated Arch Beams Under Vertical Uniform Loads

Arched castellated beams have lots of advantages such as light weight and high bearing capacity,which makes it popular among engineers.However,there are still many unsolved problems regarding the mechanical properties of arched castellated beams which current theories can not explain.On the one hand,the existing research on simply supported curved beam is insufficient especially for single-span arch structures when the lateral support lacks.On the other hand,the influence of shearing deformation of web can not be ignored when the web holes or the depth-span ratio of beams are relatively large.Therefore researches on deflection of curved beams and arched castellated beams are undertaken using theoretical derivation and numerical simulation in this paper.This paper presents analytical solutions for determining the deflections of curved beams and arched castellated beams subjected to vertical uniform load.The solutions are derived using energy method.To validate the derived analytical solutions,three-dimensional linear finite element analysis is performed using shell elements built-in ABAQUS software.Comparison of finite element results with the present analytical solutions shows that the present analytical solutions accurately predict the deflections of curved beams and arched castellated beams.Good agreement between accurate method and equivalent stiffness method is demonstrated.Furthermore,comparison of the present analytical solutions with ordinary solutions shows that the inclusion of web shear deformations significantly increase the deflections of arched castellated beams.Neglecting the web shear deformations could underestimate the deflections by up to 30 %,especially when the depth-span ratio of member is relatively large.In addition,comparison between stiffness simplification method with area simplification method on web shows that the former method is more conservative than the latter one.