Modelling Lateral Stability of Prefabricated Concrete Structures

Abstract: Stability calculations of prefabricated concrete structures with help of FEM-tools demand knowledge about how the elements are related to each other. This thesis concerns how joints between building elements affect the results when modelling prefabricated concrete structures, with demarcation to joints between hollow core (HC) slabs and between solid wall elements. The thesis also covers how the properties of the floor can be adjusted to account for the effects of the joints without modelling every single element. The work started by measuring the deflection of 10 HC-slabs jointed together and loaded in-plane acting as a deep beam, in a FE-model made with Robot™, from Autodesk®. The joints between the HC-elements were modelled either rigid or elastic, and the cross-section and the length of the HC-elements were varied. The linear elastic stiffness between the HC-elements was obtained from the literature as 0.05 (GN/m)/m. The results showed that a changed cross-section geometry gave greater differences in deformation than a changed length. The in-plane shear modulus was then adjusted for the HC-elements in the rigid cases until the same deflection was achieved as for the elastic cases. The result showed that the shear modulus in average for the different cross-section geometries and lengths had to be reduced with a factor of 0.1 to account for the joints. Based on the geometry of a castellated joint between prefabricated solid concrete walls, a calculation model was developed for its linear elastic stiffness. The result was a stiffness of 1.86 (GN/m)/m. To verify the calculated stiffness, a FE-model was developed consisting of a 30m high wall, loaded horizontally in-plane and with one or two vertical joints where the stiffness was applied. The deflection and the reaction forces were noted and the result from the calculated stiffness was compared to other stiffnesses and assessed reasonable. The reaction forces were shown to depend on the stiffness of the joint. The reduced in-plane shear modulus of the HC-elements and the calculated stiffness of the wall joints were then used in a FE-model of a 10-storey building stabilised by two units. The vertical reaction forces were analysed and the results showed 0.02 % difference in the reaction forces in the stabilising units when consideration of the joints between the HC-elements were taken into account and 0.09 % when the vertical joints in the shear wall were taken into account. The results for the wall joint differed from the results when only the wall was modelled. This was thought to be a result of that the floors counteract the shear deformations in the wall joints. The influence of the floor joints was not significant for the building considered in this thesis, but for buildings with non-continuous configuration of the stiffness in the shear walls the outcome may be another, in these cases the reduction factor may be useful.