Prediction of Large Inelastic Deformations of T-Beams Subjected to Uniform Impulsive Loads

The theoretical rigid-plastic predictions for the dynamic plastic response of impulsively loaded fully clamped beams with rectangular shaped cross-sections have been found to give favourable correlation with the permanent transverse displacements recorded on metal beams. This method was also used to provide an approximate solution for T-section beams which also showed satisfactory agreement with experimental data. In this paper, a more exact solution, which considers the T-section asymmetry of the beam cross-section is presented and compared with some new experimental data. Aluminium alloy extruded T-section beams were subjected to a uniform impulsive load distributed over the entire span. Three different geometrical cross-sections and two different beam lengths were used in the experiments. The correlation between the predictions and the experimental results show satisfactory agreement with the inscribing and circumscribing curves to the exact yield curves generally bounding the experimental data. The analysis shows the effect of the T-section geometrical asymmetry for the cases where the equal area axis is in the flange and in the web, respectively. It is further shown that the approximate solution underestimates the final deflection where the equal area axis falls within the flange, while the opposite is true for the case where the equal area axis lies in the web.