Analysis on mechanical performance and damage evaluation of H-section steel columns during and after 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 and previous experimental studies, the lateral impact model and residual load-carrying capacity model are established by using Abaqus finite element software to analyze the performance of H-section steel columns during and after impact loading. Firstly, the working mechanism, including the deformation characteristics, stress evolution and energy dissipation, is analyzed. Results indicate 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 the web. The time history curve of impact force exhibits an obvious plateau phase, and the existence of the pre-axial compression clearly reduces the impact resistance of the specimens. In general, H-section steel columns present favorable ductility performance during impact loading. Subsequently, a total of 108 parametric models are constructed, and the effects 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 are emphatically studied. The results show that as the impact mass, impact velocity, and/or pre-axial loading ratio increase, both the global and local deformations of H-section steel column will increase, while the residual load-carrying capacity will decrease. Finally, by considering the multi-factor interactions, the formulas for predicting global deformation and local deformation during impact and the residual load-carrying performance after impact are proposed by using response surface method. Results show that pre-axial loading is a key factor affecting global deformation, while the impact velocity mainly affects 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 and after impact event.