Master degree project

NUMERICAL EVALUATION OF COLDFORMED

ZPURLIN AND SHEETING INTERACTION

Ing.Marius Bogdan GROAN, Prof.dr.ing Viorel UNGUREANU

OVERVIEW AND INTRODUCTION

Purlins are structural elements that serve to link the sheeting with the main
structure and they are transferring the load from the sheeting to the beams. The
purlins are treated like partially restrained beams in their lateral and rotational
direction, because of sheeting.
Cold-formed steel profiles and sheeting/sandwich panels are frequently used in
cladding and roofing of many types of industrial and dwelling type buildings. This
type of elements have a lot of advantages like enveloping the building against
exterior elements (whether conditions, acoustic), durability, resistance against
corrosion, reliability and recyclability, they also have a low transportation cost
with effective stacking and highly productive installing.

INTERACTION OF PURLIN-SHEETING SYSTEM

When used as purlins or cladding rails, cold-formed elements are connected with
corrugated sheeting or cladding by means of screws. The sheeting can provide
certain degree of lateral and torsional restraints to the supporting purlins, thus to
reduce the liability of suffering buckling. The lateral support capacity depends
mostly by connection itself and by the number of connectors.
Sheeting provides lateral and rotational restraints which reduce the potential of
lateral buckling of the whole section, but do not necessarily eradicate the problem.
Under wind uplift, which induces compression in the unrestrained flange, lateraltorsional buckling is still a common cause of failure.
The EN199313 (2006): proposes an analytical method to analyse and design
the coldformed roof systems. The proposed design methods are based on the
design of Zpurlin connected to corrugated sheets. The effect of the cladding
system on the load carrying capacity is substituted by lateral and rotational
springs and bars in the design method.
The comparison between sheeting model and springs model was carried out in
advanced FEM models using ABAQUS 6.11-1.

OBJECTIVES OF THIS STUDY

The purpose of this project is to compare the structural behaviour of cold-formed

zed sections in purlin-sheeting systems using numerical methods (finite element
methods). The objectives are listed below:

a. To examine the applicability of Eurocodes (EN1993-1-3) in predicting the stress

distribution of cold-formed zed-sections when subjected to uniformly distributed
gravity and uplift load and which are fully laterally restrained and partially
rotationally restrained by the sheeting.

b. To compare the models with phisicaly existing sheeting and the sheeting
simulated with translational and rotational springs.

c. To compare the behavior of the purlin regarding of the step of attachment points
(one corrugation or two corrugations step).

d. To compare the stress and deformations by comparing a continuous purlin with

overlapped purlins.

FE MODEL AND LOADS

This types of elements where of a big interest for research programs with big
impact in practice, and a lot of studies were conducted to solve specific problems
of this types of elements, including general behaviour, interactions between
elements, overlapping, buckling problems, etc. Also, a lot of numerical analysis
using FEM models has been performed.
The elements used for the assembly where Z200/2 for purlin and LTP45/0.5 for
sheeting, connected on one or two folds distance. The type of steel is S355 for
purlin and S235 for sheeting. The gravity load was calculated according to ULS,
considering permanent load and snow load (1.35Gk+1.5SK), while for uplift loading
at ULS, considering permanent load and uplift wind (1.35Gk + 1.5Wk).
They are two distinct models, one with sheeting placed over the purlin (connected
at one or two folds using self-drilling screws) and the second one, which use in
the connecting points, instead of sheeting, translational and rotational springs.
For the equivalent model (sheeting modelled with springs), the stiffness for
displacement and rotation where computed using the equations from below:
= N/EA
= M/EI

THE FE MODELS

Where used different types of analyses like elastic (Static, General, NewtonRaphson method), elasto-plastic (Static, Riks, arc-length method), dynamic
(Dynamic, Explicit). For material where used the elastic, plastic (stress strain
curve) and density properties.
The mesh was realized using standard shell elements with linear
geometric order(quadratic and triangular), with reduced integration
and finite membrane strains as show in. Both gravitational and uplift
loads where applied as uniform loads, surface pressure on horizontal
parts of the sheeting for the model with sheeting and in attachment
points for the model without sheeting as showed in . To avoid the
purlin and sheeting to pass one in the other was used a surface to
surface contact with normal(hard contact) and tangential(frictionless)
behaviour.
.

MATERIALS
Stress

Strain

300

355

0.01

400

0.02

440

0.04

480

0.06

510

0.1

Stress

Strain

230

235

0.01

270

0.02

300

0.04

325

0.06

360

0.1

CALIBRATI0N OF THE MODEL

For approving the results the FE model results where compared with an experimental test made for
the PhD Dissertation of Mansour Kachichian from Budapest University of Technology and
Economics in project named Experimental analysis of coldformed Zpurlin and sheeting
interaction.

Lateral load

RESULTS

F
0
10
20
31
41
51
68
-10
-21
-30
-40

0
2.652
5.3
8.22
10.87
13.353
18.04
-2.82
-5.22
-7.78
-10.62

-51
-61

-13.641
-16.84

: Comparison

GRAVITY LOAD

Uniform distributed load

Comparison between FEM and experimental

Partial Distributed Load

Comparison between FEM and experimental

FEM Results

Model 1 - With sheeting

Gravity

Uplift

Advanced FEM analyses were used to present the behaviour of Zpurlins restrained by sheeting both under gravitational and uplift
loading. The restrained behaviour was model in two different situations,
i.e. (1) considering the sheeting and (2) without sheeting but
considering its effect by using lateral and rotational springs. The
comparison of these two models has been the object of the paper.

Model 2-Without sheeting

Gravity

Uplift

ANALYSED CASE-STUDIES

1 corrugation(180 mm)

2 corrugations(360
mm)

RESULTS

Gravity

-One corrugation step

Stresses distribution

S = 376
N/mm2

S=
358
N/mm2

Displacements
14.3 mm

14.9 mm

Two corrugations step

Are some inadvertences between
the model with sheeting and with
springs in terms of stress
propagation, but in terms of
values the stress in model with
springs is 5% bigger, this might
be because the springs are
applied as displacements and
rotations.

14.03mm

14.65mm

F- curve for the model with sheeting

F- curve for the model with springs

Uplift

Stresses distribution

The maximum stress appear on the middle support where the reaction force is maximum.
In both models increase at the attachment points.

Displacements

8.2mm

5.2 mm

-Two corrugations step

Stress

7.99 mm

Local stress on application points

8.41mm

F-curve for nonlinear analysis

OVERLAPPING
Gravity

Stress

Displacements(vertical arrow)

The maximum vertical displacement, for overlapping with springs, is 14.64

mm, witch is similar in terms of values to the gravity vertical displacement
for the continous purlin (14.3 mm with sheeting and 14.9mm with springs).

: F-curve for nonlinear analysis

Uplift

The maximum vertical displacement, for overlapping with springs, is 8.72 mm, wich is
similar in terms of values to the uplift vertical displacement for the continous purlin (7.99
mm to with sheeting and 8.41mm with springs).

F-curve for nonlinear analysis

CONCLUSIONS

The results obtained using these two models are similar, both under
gravity and uplift loadings.

Consequently the simplified method using springs can be used for

considering the purlin-sheeting interaction. If the purlin is not enough
restrained, the lateral-torsional buckling might be the cause of failure.

The purlin-to-sheeting connection (one or two folds) influences the

local behaviour of the purlin.

Supplementary parametric analyses have to be done in order to

confirm the use of simplified model.

The model with 0.1L overlapping with springs

have a similar behaviour with the continous
purlin , the overlapping influences the local
behaviour of the purlin in overlapped area,
mainly at the edges of this overlapping.

In the case of overlapping siggnficant

inflluece over the behaviour of lapped zone are
the number of bolts on the web and the
existtance of attachments between the
flanges.