Numerical study on the load bearing capacity of a steel U section beam used as a formwork in construction stage. (LAC18.B)

For many categories of buildings, the structural elements must be fire resistant to allow people to evacuate and firefighters to intervene. A new type of steel-concrete composite solution dedicated to steel building structures is under development to resist against this fire situation. The solution is composed of a steel U section acting as a formwork for a reinforced concrete part that provides the fire resistance. In order to keep the habits of steel construction, the solution is unpropped in construction stage and the concrete is casted on site. Thus the solution has to resist against three majors situations: the construction stage without propping, the exploitation stage and the fire situation. The steel part of the composite beam is then designed to face the construction stage without propping. The present paper describes the numerical investigations carried out on the load bearing capacity of this steel section in construction stage. The objective of these investigations is to finally propose a steel solution stable and resistant for its use during construction stage. The numerical model of the steel section and its boundary conditions are presented. A first elastic calculation is used to determine the Eigen modes of the beam that give the shape of initials imperfections. Then analysis considering materials non-linearity and geometrical imperfections (GMNIA calculation) are carried out. A sensitivity study on the influence of the geometrical imperfections on the load bearing capacity of the beam is performed. Then, with the more conservative initial imperfection, a study on the global stability of the beam without any intermediate restraint is carried out. Finally, to overcome the problem of instability in construction stage, the restraint induced by the perpendicular steel decks is investigated.