Analysis of mechanical performance and damage evaluation of H-section steel columns during whole impact process

H-section steel columns have been widely employed in industrial buildings and parking lots, etc., which are vulnerable to crane-loading or vehicle collisions. Based on above background, the lateral impact model and residual load-carrying capacity model were established using Abaqus finite element software to analyze the performance of H-section steel columns during and after impact loading, following previous experimental studies. Firstly, the working mechanism, including the deformation characteristics, stress evolution and energy dissipation, was analyzed. Results indicated that under impact loading, the deformation pattern is mainly dominated by the global deformation, with the local deformation of the upper flange and out-of-plane buckling of web. The time history curve of impact force presents an obvious plateau phase, and the existence of the pre-axial loading obviously reduces the impact resistance of the specimens. In general, H-section steel columns exhibited favorable ductility performance during impact loading. Subsequently, a total of 108 parametric models were developed, and the influences of load parameters (impact mass, impact velocity and axial load ratio), material parameter (steel yield strength) and geometric parameters (sectional area and specimen length) on the impact force, deformation, and residual load-carrying capacity were emphatically studied. The results showed that as the impact mass, impact velocity, and pre-axial loading ratio increased, both the global and local deformations of H-section steel column increased, while the residual bearing capacity decreased. Finally, by considering the multi-factor interactions, the formulas for predicting global deformation and local deformation during impact and the residual load performance after impact were presented by using response surface method. Results showed that pre-axial loading was a key factor affecting global deformation, while the impact velocity affected local deformation. In addition, both the pre-axial loading and impact velocity significantly interact with other parameters. The proposed formulas can be employed for the damage evaluation and design of H-section steel columns during the whole impact process.