Project update: HILONG – High Strength Long Span Structures

During my postdoc in UC, I had a chance to work on two R&D projects funded by European Commission. HILONG project was very interesting for me as we had to test 12 and 18 m long prestressed stayed columns with single and double cross-arms with normal and high strength steels. Following briefly describes this project:

Project details:

ISISE (UC) Principal Investigators: Luís Simões da Silva
Budget: Global: 1.618.212,00€/ISISE UC 271.240,00€
ID: RFSR CT 2012-00028
Funding Entity: Research Fund for Coal and Steel
Principal contractor: The Steel Construction Institute (UK)
Duration: From 1st July 2012 to 30th June 2015

Summary of the project:

Summary: The use of high strength steel (HSS) can lead to a significant reduction in the weight of a steel structure. A lighter structure requires smaller foundations, shorter transportation and construction times, and leads to lower CO2 emissions and energy use (both directly in less materials used and also indirectly due to lower transportation costs). Although HSS have found application in machinery and automotives, they are not widely used in construction because the benefit of reduced weight struggles to outweigh the disadvantages of higher price/tonne, reduced availability and different weld procedures. The purpose of the proposed work is to investigate innovative structural arrangements, design methods and cross-sections which enable the benefit of high strength to be maximised by suppressing buckling and reducing deflection. The study will have a particular focus on long span applications such as stadiums, auditoriums, exhibition halls etc. The proposed programme of testing, numerical analysis and development of design guidance will be informed by close consultation with designers of long span structures throughout the project. The grades of HSS to be studied are S460 and S690.

Publication:

For detailed description and interesting findings on 12m columns, read below article:

https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=CDxLzPsAAAAJ&sortby=pubdate&citation_for_view=CDxLzPsAAAAJ:dhFuZR0502QC