STUDY ON THE STRUCTURAL BEHAVIOUR OF HYBRID WOOD

STEEL STRUCTURES USING FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSIS

This project involves a detailed study of steel-wood hybrid structures and their applications in
Construction industry. Hybrid structures combine benefits of dissimilar materials to overcome
their individual limitations. Various advantages and challenges of steel-timber hybrid structures are
presented. Benefits include increase in tensile capacity, seismic performance, fire resistance of the
structure, and cost savings. Challenges with this type of hybrid structures originate from the
differences in the properties of the materials used. Connection design may be more difficult as
temperature and humidity variations have different effects on steel and timber. The hybrid materials
can be integrated at component levels (hybrid slab/diaphragms, hybrid beams, hybrid columns, hybrid
diagonals, hybrid post-tensioned joints) and/or at the building system levels (hybrid frames, hybrid
system of steel frames and wood diaphragms, vertical mixed system and hybrid trusses). To elaborate
on these types of hybridization and their advantages and challenges, case studies of steel-timber,
concrete-timber and steel-concrete structures are provided. Currently there are no material and design
standards for hybrid wood-steel structures. Another aim of this project is to investigate technical
software and identify the pros and cons of software for modeling hybrid structures. The considered
software is ANSYS. ANSYS Software can evaluated in terms of their ability to model linear and
non-linear materials; orthotropic and isotropic materials and composite materials. Among a varity of
softwares ANSYS is found to be the most suitable for modeling hybrid wood and steel structures.

In this thesis a four storey hybrid steel wood structure is modeled with ANSYS.

References :
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Congress Fire Computer Modeling, Universidad de Cantabria, pp. 407-420,
ISBN 978-84-86116-69-9, 2012.
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