A.R. Dar

Behaviour of partly stiffened cold-formed steel built-up beams: Experimental investigation and numerical validation

To address the various instability problems in cold-formed steel members, many researchers have mainly focused on developing innovative sectional profiles wherein geometry of the section plays a vital role in enhancing the inherent resistance of such sections against premature buckling. However, the process of forming such innovative shapes is not only complex and time-consuming but sometimes such sections fail to mobilize their complete reserve strength. Hence, a stiffening arrangement of weaker zones for mobilizing the untapped reserve strength is suggested. The contribution of this simple, effective and partly stiffening arrangements, aimed at eliminating/delaying the premature local buckling, is studied both experimentally and numerically and also compared with existing codes. Experimental study was carried out on different simply supported cold-formed steel beams with judiciously proposed stiffening arrangements under four-point loading. An equivalent hot-rolled steel beam was also tested to compare the efficiency of the cold-formed steel beams. The cold-formed steel beams investigated had different width-to-thickness ratio, different geometries and different stiffening arrangements. The test strengths, failure modes, deformed shapes, load versus mid-span displacements and geometric imperfections were measured and reported. The test strengths of the beam models are also compared with the design strength predicted by North American Standards and Eurocode for cold-formed steel structures. To validate the test results further, a numerical study was carried out on such stiffened cold-formed steel beams using finite element software ABAQUS. All these results show that the proposed strengthening system is efficient and economical and allow cold-formed steel beams to reach greater load carrying capacity.

Construction of the Cut-Off Wall for a 330mw Hydropower Project at Kishanganga in J&K

Cutoff Wall indicated is a thin watertight wall of clay or concrete (concrete in this case) built up from a cutoff trench to reduce seepage through any natural water passages-joints and cleavage planes in the rock massif or passages between ground constituents such as boulders and cobbles and through existing granular material such as sands and gravels and deepen the flow lines to make them pass beyond the dam area. It is also known as core wall. The use of diaphragm walls as cut-off or seepage barriers or as structural elements has been on the civil engineering and geotechnical scene in a relatively widespread manner since just after the Second World War.