Sensitivity analysis of steel plane frames with initial imperfections

The article presents the sensitivity and statistical analyses of the load-carrying capacity of a steel portal frame. It elaborates a typical stability problem of a system comprising two single-storey columns loaded in compression. The elements of this system mutually influence each other, and this fact, in conjunction with the random imperfections, influences the load-carrying capacity variance. This mutual interaction is analysed using the Sobol’ sensitivity analysis. The Sobol’ sensitivity analysis is applied to identify the dominant input random imperfections and their higher order interaction effects on the load-carrying capacity. Majority of imperfections were considered according to the results of experimental research. Realizations of initial imperfections were simulated applying the Latin Hypercube Sampling method. The geometrical nonlinear solution providing numerical result per run was employed. The frame was meshed using beam elements. The columns of the plane frame are considered with two variants of boundary conditions. The dependence between mean and design load-carrying capacities and column non-dimensional slenderness is analysed.