Proposal for an empirical evaluation of rotation capacity of RHS aluminium alloy beams based on fem simulations

The aim of this work is the development of an empirical relationship for evaluating the rotation capacity of RHS aluminium alloy beams, for temper T4 and T6. The proposed relationships are based on the numerical results coming from an extensive parametric analysis performed by means of FE code ABAQUS for different materials, which gain insight into the influence of all the geometrical and mechanical parameters affecting the ultimate behaviour. In particular, the influence of the materials strain hardening, flange slenderness, web stiffness, shape factor and moment gradient the on the plastic behaviour of such beams has been investigated. Successively, by means of monovariate and multivariate non linear regression analyses, empirical relationships are provided in order to predict the rotation capacity of RHS aluminium alloy beams starting from their geometrical and mechanical properties. This paper is focused on this issue.