Journal of Constructional Steel Research 57 (2001) 907923 www.elsevier.

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Practical advanced analysis and design of three-dimensional truss bridges

Seung-Eock Kim
a

a,*

, Moon-Ho Park b, Se-Hyu Choi

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Sejong University, 98 Koonja-dong, Kwangjin-ku, Seoul, 143-747, South Korea b Kyungpook National University, Taegu, South Korea c Construction Technology Research Institute, Sejong University, Seoul, South Korea

Received 5 September 2000; received in revised form 22 January 2001; accepted 3 April 2001

Abstract A new design method of three-dimensional truss bridges using practical advanced analysis is presented. Separate member capacity checks encompassed by the code specications are not required, because the stability of separate members and the structure as a whole can be rigorously treated in determing the maximum strength of the structures. The geometric nonlinearity is considered using the updated Lagrangian formulation. The material nonlinearity is implemented using Column Research Council (CRC) tangent modulus. Result verications are performed by comparison with the results from a step by step analysis. The loaddeection behavior of the truss shows a good agreement with the step by step analysis results. A case study is performed on a truss bridge. The analysis results show that the proposed method is suitable for adoption in practice. 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Advanced analysis; Geometric nonlinearity; Material nonlinearity; Truss bridge

1. Introduction The steel design methods used in the US are Allowable Stress Design (ASD), Plastic Design (PD), and Load and Resistance Factor Design (LRFD). In ASD, the stress computation is based on a rst-order elastic analysis, and the geometric nonlinear effects are implicitly accounted for in the member design equations. In PD, a

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +822 3408 3291; fax: +822 3408 3332. E-mail address: sekim@sejong.ac.kr (S.-E. Kim).
0143-974X/01/$ - see front matter 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 1 4 3 - 9 7 4 X ( 0 1 ) 0 0 0 1 5 - 3

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rst-order plastic-hinge analysis is used in the structural analysis. Plastic design allows inelastic force redistribution throughout the structural system. Since geometric nonlinearity and gradual yielding effects are not accounted for in the analysis of plastic design, they are approximated in member design equations. In LRFD, a rstorder elastic analysis with amplication factors or a direct second-order elastic analysis is used to account for geometric nonlinearity, and the ultimate strength of members is implicitly reected in the design interaction equations. However, despite popular use of conventional design methods in the past and present as a basis for design, the methods have their major limitations. The rst of these is that it does not give an accurate indication of the factor against failure, because it does not consider the interaction of strength and stability between the member and structural system in a direct manner. It is a well-recognized fact that the actual failure mode of the structural system often does not have any resemblance whatsoever to the elastic buckling mode of the structural system. The second and perhaps the most serious limitation is probably the rationale of the current two-stage process in design: elastic analysis is used to determine the forces acting on each member of a structure system, whereas inelastic analysis is used to determine the strength of each member treated as an isolated member. There is no verication of the compatibility between the isolated member and the member as part of a structural system. The individual member strength equations as specied in specications are unconcerned with system compatibility. As a result, there is no explicit guarantee that all members will sustain their design loads under the geometric conguration imposed by the structural system. Since the power of personal computers and engineering workstations is rapidly increasing, it is now feasible to employ advanced analysis techniques for direct design use. Advanced analysis indicates any method that can sufciently capture the limit state strength and stability of a structural system and its individual members so that separate member capacity checks encompassed by the specication equations are not required. This is because advanced analysis accounts for material and geometric nonlinearities directly. It is expected that the use of advanced analysis will simplify the design process considerably. Fig. 1 compares the conventional approach and the direct approach [13]. The main distinction between advanced analysis and conventional methods is that advanced analysis can predict the structural system strength, whereas others can predict only member strengths. Advanced analysis uses a design format associated with the structural system rather than individual members. In this way, a uniform reliability of structural systems can be achieved by reecting the degree of uncertainty of different loads and combinations of loads. The analysis uses the same resistance factors and load factors as those of the LRFD method. During the past 20 years, research efforts have been devoted to the development and validation of several advanced analysis methods in the advanced analysis for steel frame structures. The plastic-zone solution is known as the exact solution, but cannot be used for practical design purposes [4,5]. This is because the method is too intensive in computation and costly due to its complexity. Second-order inelastic analyses for the space frames were developed by Orbison et al. [6], Ziemian et al.

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Fig. 1.

Direct approach for steel design.

[7], Prakash and Powell [8], and Liew and Tang [9]. Papadrakakis [10], Blandford [11], and Yang et al. [12] studied post-buckling behavior of space trusses. The purpose of this paper is to present a direct design method of space truss bridges using a practical advanced analysis. In this paper, LRFD column strength is used to estimate the ultimate strength of truss members subjected to compression since a conventional geometric stiffness matrix over-estimates the elastic buckling strength of truss elements. The capacity of a compression member is assumed to remain constant at its buckling load.

2. Formulation of stiffness matrix including inelastic nonlinear effect For cases where the strain increments eij within each incremental step of the nonlinear analysis can be considered small in updated Lagrangian formulation, the virtual work equation of equilibrium for the truss element in a nonlinear incremental form can be written as [13]:

Cijklekldeij dV tij dhij dV1R2R

V

(1)

where ekl and hij are linear and nonlinear parts of strain increment eij, respectively. tij is the initial axial stress and Cijkl is the incremental constitutive coefcients. 2R and 1R are the virtual works done by the external loads acting on the body at current conguration C2 and last calculated conguration C1, respectively. Denoting axial stress increment by Sxx, we can express the increment constitutive law as SxxEtexx (2)

where Et is the CRC tangent modulus accounting for gradual yielding due to residual stresses. The advantage using Et is minimizing time and memory required in compu-

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Fig. 2.

CRC tangent modulus.

tation since only one element per member is needed for an analysis. The CRC tangent modulus Et is expressed as a function of axial force (Fig. 2) as Et1.0E

P P Et4 E 1 Py Py

for P0.5Py for P0.5Py

(3) (4)

in which Py=FyA, E is elastic tangent modulus, P is axial force, and Fy is yield stress. Eq. (1) can be reduced to

Etexxdexx dV txxdhxx dV1R2R

(5)

Consider a truss element with length L in Fig. 3, in which the C1 coordinates (x,

Fig. 3.

Degree of freedom for three-dimensional truss element.

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y, and z) have been denoted as the left superscripts omitted for clarity. Let A and B denote the two ends of the member and (u,v,w) as the axial and transverse displacements during the incremental step from C1 to C2. The displacements (u,v,w) may be interpolated by linear functions as x x uua 1 ub L L x x vva 1 vb L L x x wwa 1 wb L L

(6) (7) (8)

where (ua,va,wa) and (ub,vb,wb) denote the displacements at a and b ends of the member, respectively. The linear and nonlinear parts of the axial strain exx can be expressed as u u exx x L and, (9)

1 u 2 v 2 w hxx 2 x x x where uubua vvbva wwbwa.

1 u2 v2 w2 2 L2 L2 L2

(10)

(11) (12) (13)

As shown in Fig. 3, the nodal displacement vector for the truss element is {u}T{ua va wa ub vb wb}. Correspondingly, the element force vectors at C1 and C2 are {1f}T{1Fxa 1Fya 1Fza 1Fxb 1Fyb 1Fzb} {2f}T{2Fxa 2Fya 2Fza 2Fxb 2Fyb 2Fzb}. (15) (16) (14)

It should be noted that, in a truss element in equilibrium at C1 conguration, the transverse shear forces 1Fya and 1Fyb are equal to zero and the axial forces acting on the two ends of the element are equal in magnitude but opposite in direction (i.e. 1 Fxb= 1Fxa). Moreover, the initial axial force 1Fx can be related to the initial stress txx by

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Fx txx dA
A

(17)

where A denotes the cross-sectional area of the member at C1 conguration. For the sake of simplicity, we shall assume that loadings of the concentrated type are applied on two ends of the truss element. Loadings of the distributed type will only be considered when they are replaced by statically equivalent nodal loads. In accordance, each of the terms in Eq. (5) can be derived as

Etexxdexx dV Et
V

Fx

u u d dV{du}T[Ke]{u} L L

(18)

V 1

txxdhxxdV
T

L 1

u u v v w w d d d L L L L L L

dx

(19)

{du} [Kg]{u}

R tidui dS{du}T{1f}
S

(20)

where [Ke] and [Kg] are the inelastic and geometric stiffness matricies, respectively. The inelastic stiffness matrix [Ke] for the three-dimensional truss element can be expressed as

[Ke]

EtA L 0 0 EtA L 0 0

0 0 0 0 0 0

0 0 0 0 0 0

EtA L 0 0 EtA L 0 0

0 0 0 0 0 0

0 0 0

0 0 0

(21)

The geometric stiffness matrix [Kg] for the three-dimensional truss element can be expressed as

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[Kg]

where the relation 1Fx= 1Fxb has been used in deriving the [Kg] matrix. Using the expressions in Eqs. (18)(20) and admitting the arbitrary nature of virtual displacements {du}, we can derive the incremental stiffness equation for the three-dimensional truss element from Eq. (5) as ([Ke][Kg]){u}{1f}{2f}
1

Fxb L
1

0 Fxb L
1

0 0 Fxb L

Fxb L 0 0
1

0 Fxb L 0 0
1

0 0
1

0 0
1

0 0
1

Fxb L 0 0

Fxb L 0 0

0 0
1

Fxb L 0 0

Fxb L 0

Fxb L
1

Fxb L

Fxb L

(22)

(23)

in which the term { f} on the left-hand side represents the initial forces acting on the element at C1, the term {f2} on the right-hand side represents the total forces acting on the element at C2, and the remaining terms on the left-hand side denote the incremental forces generated by resistance of the element against the external force increments (i.e. {2f}{1f}). 3. Ultimate strength of truss member The ultimate strength of a truss member is determined by the AASHTO-LRFD [14] equations as For tension PufPnfFyA For compression If l2.25, then PufPnf0.66lFyA If l2.25, then PufPnf for which l is l 0.88FyA l (25a) (25b) (24)

L 2Fy rsp E

(26)

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where Fy is yield stress, A is gross cross sectional area, L is unbraced length, rs is radius of gyration about the plane of buckling, and E is Youngs modulus.

4. Numerical implementation The simple incremental method, as a direct nonlinear solution technique, is used in the analysis. Its numerical procedure is straightforward in concept and implementation. The advantage of this method is its computational efciency. In this approach, however, equilibrium between the external applied loads and the internal element forces is not satised for a nite increment size, and this method only approximates the nonlinear structural response. To avoid this, an improved incremental method is used in this program. The applied load increment is automatically reduced to minimize the error when the change in the element stiffness parameter (Et) exceeds a dened tolerance.

5. Verication 5.1. Two-dimensional truss Fig. 4 shows a two-dimensional truss subjected to a vertical load at point A. The stressstrain relationship is assumed to be elasticperfectly plastic with yield stress of 250 MPa (36 kips) and elastic modulus of 200,000 MPa (29,000 ksi). W1482 is used for all members. The results from the proposed and a step by step analysis are compared. The step by step analysis method is an elastic analysis of eliminating members as they yield or buckle until a structural system collapses. The loaddisplacement results of the proposed and the step by step analysis are

Fig. 4.

Two-dimensional truss.

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compared in Fig. 5. When the load is applied downward, the proposed and step by step method calculate the ultimate loads of 7365 kN (1655 kips) and 7388 kN (1649 kips), respectively. The difference in the ultimate loads between two approaches is less than 0.3%. It is important to note that the structural stiffness changes abruptly in the step by step method. However, the stiffness from the advanced analysis method changes gradually since the proposed analysis accounts for gradual member yielding. In the compression loading case, the calculated ultimate load from the proposed analysis is 5789 kN (1301 kips) which is same as that calculated from the step by step method. Since the step by step method does not account for gradual member yielding, the structure stiffness is abruptly reduced and element No. 2 fails suddenly at buckling strength. In the proposed analysis, the stiffness of element No. 2 is gradually reduced. The calculated buckling load from the proposed analysis is approximately 3% larger than that from the step by step method. The capacity improvement is due to the inelastic redistribution of member forces in the proposed method. 5.2. Three-dimensional truss Fig. 6 shows a three-dimensional truss subjected to a vertical load at point A. The stressstrain relationship is assumed to be elasticperfectly plastic with yield stress of 250 MPa (36 kips) and elastic modulus of 200,000 MPa (29,000 ksi). W1482 is used for all the members. The loaddisplacement results from the proposed and the step by step analysis are compared in Fig. 7. In the tension loading case, the proposed and step by step method calculate the ultimate loads of 11,405 kN (2563 kips) and 11,361 kN (2553 kips), respectively. The difference in the ultimate loads between two approaches is less than 0.4%. Two analyses predict identical ultimate load of 5554 kN (1248 kips) in compression.

Fig. 5.

Loaddisplacement of two-dimensioal truss. (a) for downward load (P); (b) for upward load (P).

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Fig. 6. Three-dimensional truss.

5.3. Truss with double braced panel Fig. 8 shows a two-dimensional truss with double braced panel subjected to a concentrated load at point A. The stressstrain relationship is assumed to be elastic perfectly plastic with yield stress of 250 MPa (36 kips) and elastic modulus of 200,000 MPa (29,000 ksi). W1482 is used for all members. The loaddisplacement results from the proposed and the step by step analysis are compared in Fig. 9. The proposed and step by step method calculate the ultimate loads of 6012 kN (1351 kips) and 6020 kN (1353 kips), respectively. The difference in the ultimate loads between two approaches is less than 0.13%. 6. Design principles 6.1. Design format Advanced analysis follows the format of Load and Resistance Factor Design. In AASHTO-LRFD [14], the factored load effect does not exceed the factored nominal

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Fig. 7. Loaddisplacement of three-dimensional truss. (a) for downward load (P); (b) for upward load (P).

Fig. 8.

Truss with double braced panel.

resistance of structure. Two kinds of factors are used: one is applied to loads, the other to resistances. The load and resistance factor design has the format h

giQifRn

(27)

where Rn is nominal resistance of the structural member, Qi is force effect, f is resistance factor, gi is load factor corresponding to Qi, h is a factor relating to ductility, redundancy, and operational importance. The main difference between current LRFD methods and advanced analysis methods is that the right-hand side of Eq. (27), (fRn) in the LRFD method is the resistance or strength of the component of a structural system, but in the advanced

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Fig. 9.

Loaddisplacement of truss with double braced panel.

analysis method, it represents the resistance or the load-carrying capacity of the whole structural system. In the advanced analysis method, the load-carrying capacity is obtained from applying incremental loads until a structural system reaches its strength limit state such as yielding or buckling. The left-hand side of Eq. (27), (hSgiQi) represents the member forces in the LRFD method, but the applied load on the structural system in the advanced analysis method. 6.2. Modeling consideration 6.2.1. Sections The AASHTO-LRFD Specication uses only one column curve for rolled and welded sections of W, WT, and HP shapes, pipe, and structural tubing. The Specication also uses same interaction equations for doubly and singly symmetric members including W, WT, and HP shapes, pipe and structural tubing. The proposed analysis was developed by calibration with the LRFD column curve. To this end, it is concluded that the proposed methods can be used for various rolled and welded sections including W, WT, and HP shapes, pipe, and structural tubing without further modications. 6.2.2. Structural members One element per member adequately predicts the strength of a truss member. To model a parabolic out-of-straightness in the member is not necessary because ultimate strength dened by Eqs. (25a) and (25b) already includes geometric imperfection effect.

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6.2.3. Load 6.2.3.1. Proportional loading In the proposed advanced analysis, the gravity and lateral loads should be applied simultaneously, since it does not account for unloading. As a result, the method under-predicts the strength of trusses subjected to sequential loads, large gravity loads rst and then lateral loads. It is, however, justied for the practical design since the development of the LRFD interaction equations was also based on strength curves subjected to simultaneous loading [11] and the current LRFD elastic analysis uses the proportional loading rather than the sequential loading. 6.2.3.2. Incremental loading It is necessary, in an advanced analysis, to input each increment load (not the total loads) to trace nonlinear loaddisplacement behavior. The incremental loading process can be achieved by scaling down the combined factored loads by a number between 20 and 50. For a highly redundant structure, dividing by about 20 is recommended and for a nearly statically determinate structure, the incremental load may be factored down by 50. One may choose a number between 20 and 50 to reect the redundancy of a particular structure. In a highly redundant structure, the applied load increment is automatically reduced as a member yields. 6.3. Design consideration 6.3.1. Load-carrying capacity Since the elastic analysis method does not capture the inelastic redistribution of internal forces throughout a structural system, the method may provide a conservative estimation of the ultimate load-carrying capacity. Advanced analysis, however, directly considers force redistribution due to material yielding and thus allows smaller member sizes to be selected. This is particularly benecial in highly indeterminate steel structures. Because consideration at force redistribution may not always be desirable, the two approaches (including and excluding inelastic force redistribution) can be used. First, the load-carrying capacity, including the effect of inelastic force redistribution, is obtained from the nal loading step (limit state) given by the computer program. Secondly, the load-carrying capacity without the inelastic force redistribution is obtained by extracting that force sustained when the rst member yield or buckled. Generally, advanced analysis predicts the same member size as the LRFD method when force redistribution is not considered. 6.3.2. Serviceability limit The most common parameter affecting the design serviceability of steel bridge is the deection. The deection limits are specied by the code. The advanced analysis does not set any specic limitations of serviceability, but the usual serviceability requirements are used. Service live load deections may be limited to L/800 where L is the span length of a truss bridge. At service load state, member yielding are

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not permitted anywhere in the structure to avoid permanent deformation under service loads.

7. Design example 7.1. Conguration of truss bridge Fig. 10 shows the Warren truss bridge 7.32 m (24 ft) wide and 36.6 m (120 ft) long. The stressstrain relationship was assumed to be elasticperfectly plastic with elastic modulus of 200,000 MPa (29,000 ksi). The wide ange section of W818 with the yield stress of 248 MPa (36 ksi) was used for the tensile members including bottom chords and lateral braces. The tube cross section of 30530513 mm (12121/2 in) with yield stress of 317 MPa (46 ksi) was used for the compressive members including the top chords. 7.2. Load combination The dead load, live load, and impact load specied in AASHTO-LRFD [14] were considered as design loads. The concentrated dead loads and live loads of HS-20 were applied on each joint. The load factors of 1.25 for the dead load, 1.75 for the live load, and 0.33 for the impact load were used. Fig. 11 shows the design load including the load factor. Resistance factors of 0.95 for the tensile members and 0.9 for the compressive members were used. They were originally used in Eqs. (1) and (2) and correspondingly programmed in the analysis computer code. The capacity of a compression member remains constant at its buckling load. Over loads are transferred to adjacent members until the whole system collapses.

Fig. 10.

Truss bridge.

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Fig. 11. Load conditions of truss bridge.

7.3. Result of analysis The member sizes were adequate since the ultimate load factor () calculated from the proposed analysis was 1.06 as shown in Fig. 12. The truss bridge failed by yielding rather than buckling. Since the proposed analysis accounts for geometric and material nonlinearities of the whole system as well as its component members, the analysis does not require separate member capacity checks. The maximum deection by the service load was calculated as 17 mm (0.68 in) and the deection ratio was L/2118 which satised the deection limit of L/800.

8. Conclusion The direct design using practical advanced analysis for three-dimensional truss bridge has been developed. The concluding remarks are as follows. 1. A nonlinear analysis method for three-dimensional truss is developed.

Fig. 12.

Loaddisplacement of truss bridge at midspan.

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2. The geometric nonlinearity is considered by updating Lagrangian formulation. The material nonlinearity is implemented by using CRC tangent modulus. 3. The strength and displacement results from the proposed analysis are compared well with those from the step by step method. 4. The proposed analysis provides inelastic behavior and information on the failure mechanism, (i.e. buckling or yielding). 5. The proposed method overcomes the difculties due to incompatibility between the elastic global analysis and the limit state member design in the conventional LRFD method. 6. Since the proposed analysis accounts for both material and geometric nonlinearities of three-dimensional truss bridges, it does not require separate member capacity checks after an analysis. Thus, it leads to time-saving in daily design.

Acknowledgements This work presented in this paper was supported by funds of National Research Laboratory Program (2000-N-NL-01-C-162) from Ministry of Science and Technology in Korea. Authors wish to appreciate the nancial support.

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[12] Yang YB, Yang CT, Chang TP, Chang PK. Effects of member buckling and yielding on ultimate strengths of space trusses. Eng Struct 1996;19(2):17991. [13] Yang YB, Kuo SR. Theory and analysis of nonlinear frame structures. Prentice Hall, 1994. [14] AASHTO LRFD Bridge Design Specication. AASHTO, 1998.