Quasi-static and Impact Behaviour of Innovative Hybrid Corrugated (HC) Members

In today’s world, organised research and development have greatly increased the production of new knowledge. Over the past few decades, innovations and the outcome of innovative activities have surrounded us; some affect our life more than others while some are more noticeable than others. Indeed, technology evolution gradually forms our modern life. On this journey, structural engineers are not an exemption though. They have always been trying to find more resilient structural members in order to build high performance infrastructure. As an attempt to achieve this goal, innovative Hybrid Corrugated (HC) sections are introduced and examined in this thesis. <br> The HC sections exhibit superior behaviour in comparison to conventional tubular sections, not only on the performance of structures, but also from an aesthetic point of view. The square shape of these hollow sections are comprised of four corrugated plates which may or may not have corner tubes welded to the apexes of the section. The material of plates is from medium strength structural steel whilst it is ultra-high strength steel for the corner tubes. <br> The major objective of this research work is to investigate the behaviour of HC members under quasi-static and impact loadings. For the former loading case, the full-scale HC sections are loaded under axial compression and four-point bending. The latter loading case is addressed through a falling mass dropped on the mid-span of the HC member. <br> Getting validated by the experimental data, this research also focuses on the development of predictive numerical models for further understanding the mechanical behaviour, section capacities and energy absorption of HC sections. The developed model is used to predict the performance of HC sections with various geometrical parameters. After parametric studies on the HC sections with different corrugation profiles, an explicit formulation is analytically developed to estimate the compressive load carrying and flexural moment capacities of HC sections. <br> The results of this research will help engineers to compare the superior performance of HC sections with equivalent fabricated sections and tailor HC sections according to their needs and reach to an optimised configuration. The derived analytical formulation has the potential to be used in the codes of practice for rational analysis and design of HC sections