Interval Thermoelastic Response of Elastically Restrained Steel Beams

AbstractThis paper investigates the interval thermoelastic analysis for the responses of elastically restrained steel beams under a linear temperature gradient. Previous studies of thermal responses of such beams have been based on the assumptions that the properties of the materials and the geometry of the beam and elastic restraints, and the thermal expansion coefficient of the material are predetermined, and no uncertainties in these properties have been taken into account. However, the material and thermal properties of steel, the elastic stiffnesses of the restraints, and dimensions of such beams are often subjected to a certain amount of scatter in their values and so the uncertainties of these parameters have to be considered in the thermal responses analysis. In practice, it is difficult to estimate experimentally the autocorrelation function, or spectral density function of the stochastic variation of these properties. Hence, in this paper, uncertainties of these parameters are accounted for by use of interval modelling of uncertainties. Both upper and lower thermoelastic responses are calculated using an interval valued extension of real solutions so that designers may have a better understanding of the actual responses of elastically restrained steel beams under the linear temperature gradient