Análise numérica de colunas compostas em aço inoxidável submetidas à compressão

Abstract

The use of stainless steel in civil construction is growing mainly due to the greater potential of strength and durability of this material. As well as the use of stainless steel structures, the implementation of lighter structures, such as the application of built-up columns, is also a good alternative in the search for more competitive solutions. The current international standards for stainless steel design available have been developed largely in accordance with the guidelines based on carbon steel, leading to conservative and economically disadvantageous results because they do not consider the added load that stainless steel can achieve. The calculation methods employed in the design of built-up elements present results that are far from their capacity. Until then, studies have been focused on carbon steel columns. Thus, in order to add information to these surveys, besides the analysis of built-up columns in carbon steel, this work analyzes the structural behavior of built-up columns in stainless steel, studying the austenitic, ferritic and duplex steels. The built-up columns investigated, were of type battened, with cross sections formed from non-stiffened U section. Numerical models were developed in the Abaqus program, based on the finite element method, in order to determine the resistance of these elements. The model was calibrated based on experimental tests. It was verified that the duplex and ferritic steels presented higher resistance, while the austenitic steel presented resistance similar to carbon steel. On the basis of the results obtained, a good agreement was found between the numerical and theoretical results based on the Eurocode for the columns analyzed in carbon steel and austenitic steel, while for ferritic and duplex steels the results presented the most distinction.