Numerical study of rigid steel beam-column joints under impact loading

This paper presents the numerical simulations of rigid steel beam-column joints under impact loads. In the model, beams, columns and bolts are simulated by solid elements and surface-to-surface contact pairs are defined to take account of the interactions between beams and columns. Besides, a fracture model in ABAQUS is simplified to correlate the fracture strain to the stress triaxiality. Explicit dynamic solver is used in the simulations to overcome the problems of convergence induced by contact and fracture. Comparisons between numerical and experimental results demonstrate that the model is capable of predicting the dynamic responses of beam-column joints under impact loading with reasonably good accuracy in terms of the impact load and vertical displacement. Besides, the horizontal tension force in the joints can also be obtained from the numerical model, which shed light on the development of horizontal tension to resist the imposed impact load. Furthermore, a series of parametric studies is conducted to investigate the effects of impact energy and span-depth ratio (SDR) on the response of steel joints. Practical recommendations are provided for the design of steel joints under impact loading in accordance with the parametric studies. Finally, conclusions are drawn from the numerical simulations.