Tech Briefs

Analysis of Domed Roof on a Railway Station

ADINA is now used worldwide for complex analyses. The Southwest Jiaotong University conducted an analysis under contract to study the structural integrity of the roof of a large railway station at Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, in China.

The roof considered is the wide-span steel structure shown in Figure 1. The circular dome shown in the middle has a diameter of 80 m and is 16 m high. The dome is supported at its rim by transitional trusses that connect to the surrounding structure. The small circled zone on the rim of the dome shows the area of interest for which laboratory test results were obtained, see Figures 2 and 3.



Figure 1 Schematic of the entire roof structure





Figure 2 Schematic of experimental setup





Figure 3 Photograph of experimental setup



A 3-D CAD model was created, and a finite element analysis was performed using ADINA. The finite element model is shown in Figure 4.




Figure 4 Finite element model of structure



The behavior of the structure under load was simulated and compared with experimental results. Figure 5 shows the deformations and effective stress calculated using ADINA. The study team reported that the simulation results and the experimental results are in good agreement.




Figure 5 Analysis results showing deformations and effective stress



The failure of the structure was also simulated. Figure 6 shows the results of the failure analysis.




Figure 6 Analysis results predicting failure of structure



Using the finite element results, the designers were able to determine the vulnerable parts of the structure, which helped to improve the safety of the overall roof design.

As demonstrated in this study, the use of the reliable and effective finite element procedures in ADINA allows users to simulate structures, with confidence, not only subjected to normal loading conditions, but also to extreme conditions of loading resulting in large deformations and possible failure.


Keywords:
Wide-span steel structure, domed roof, nonlinear finite element, large deformation, structural failure



Courtesy of Southwest Jiaotong University