Numerical Study for Steel Arch Beams of Compact Section with Circular Web Openings

This study presents a numerical simulation of the behaviours of compact steel arch beams, with and without openings, using the commercial finite element software ABAQUS. Numerical model was firstly validated against under-publishing research to verify the accuracy of FEA results and then used to conduct a parametric study to investigate the effects of several parameters on the load - deflection curve of the arch steel beams with openings such as opening area, opening shape, openings number, yielding stress of steel material, radius of arch beam and effect of adding steel stiffeners. The results from the numerical investigation showed that the FEA results gave a good agreement with the experimental results in terms of ultimate strength, maximum deflection, load-deflection curves, and failure mode. The parametric study further showed that the ultimate failure loads for arch beams with openings decreased with the increase in the opening diameter from nearly 2 to 21% for openings of diameters 50mm and 125 mm, respectively, located at the centre of the web, while the ultimate load capacity of steel arch beams with edge openings decreased by about 26% in comparison with the control beam when the diameter increased to 125 mm. Also, the increase in the radius of the arch beam using radii of (537.3, 797.5, and ∞) mm resulted a decrease in ultimate load capacity about 17% and 40% for radii (797.5 and ∞ mm) respectively, compared with the control beam of radius 537.3 mm.