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Numerical Modeling of Composite Castellated Beams

Article · February 2011

DOI: 10.1061/41142(396)45

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 NUMERICAL MODELING OF COMPOSITE CASTELLATED BEAMS

Marian A. Gizejowski
Warsaw University of Technology, Faculty of Civil Engineering
Department of Building Structures
Warsaw, Poland
m.gizejowski@il.pw.edu.pl

Wael A. Salah
Warsaw University of Technology, Faculty of Civil Engineering
Department of Building Structures
Warsaw, Poland
w.salah@il.pw.edu.pl

ABSTRACT
In modern composite structures higher steel grades are used for structural steel profiles in
order to increase span capacity without an unnecessary increase in the composite floor depth.
This tendency results in beams that are more vulnerable to the failure modes that involve the
web LSB (local shear buckling) and/or the compression flange RDB (restrained distortional
buckling). The effects of shear stresses as well as web buckling and post-buckling behavior on
the overall beam performance have been investigated both experimentally and numerically in
order to resolve the most important behavioral issues of plain webbed composite beams. Less
attention has been paid to the investigations of instability effects on the ultimate strength of
steel profiles in continuous castellated composite beam systems. In this paper different finite
element techniques are used to investigate the in-plane behavior with use of geometrically
linear analysis and the out-of-plane distortional behavior with use of geometrically nonlinear
analysis, both techniques applied to trace the performance of continuous composite beams.

INTRODUCTION
Steel castellated or cellular beams, lighter than conventional shapes, have been used in order
to create flexible floor plans that are free of interior columns. A renaissance of their application
in modern building structures results from the utilization of their composite action in floor
constructions. To further economize a floor framing design, asymmetric open webbed shapes
used in composite construction take advantage of smaller top flanges required in the
transformed section and a larger bottom flange resisting tension in sagging moment regions
and out-of-plane distortional buckling in hogging moment regions. Modern composite beams of
higher grade of structural steel profiles are more vulnerable to the failure modes that involve the
web LSB (local shear buckling) and/or the compression flange RDB (restrained distortional
buckling). The effects of shear stresses as well as web buckling and post-buckling behavior on
the overall beam performance have been investigated in recent years both experimentally and
numerically in order to resolve the most important behavioral issues of simply supported
castellated composite beams.
Experimental investigations of bare steel castellated beams were recently carried out in order
verify the distortional buckling behavior [Zirakian and Showkati 2006]. Six steel castellated
beams were tested up to failure. Lateral buckling with section distortion was observed at the
failure load for all tested beams. Five castellated composite beams were tested up to failure at
the Structural Engineering Laboratory of McGill University [Megharief 1997]. The aim of this
testing project was to observe the behavior of simply-supported composite castellated beam
under the sagging moment and different beam lengths, corresponding to different shear-to-
moment ratios. Therefore, the tested specimens were divided into two groups, namely short
and long spans, to represent shear and flexural specimens, respectively. The beams were
fabricated from a Bantam beam section. Results obtained experimentally indicated that the
ultimate strength of shear composite beams was associated with lateral-torsional buckling of
the web-posts while longer flexural composite beams reached their ultimate strength when most
of the studs failed, resulting in lateral-torsional buckling because of a sudden change in the
restraining conditions of the I-section compression flange.
Less attention, if any, has been paid to investigations of the strength in continuous castellated
composite beam systems where different instability effects start to play an important role,
especially in the hogging moment zone [Gizejowski and Salah 2007]. A variety of parameters
that may affect the failure load of statically indeterminate composite beams were studied such
as the negative moment span length, shape of the web openings, openings arrangement at
both sides of the beam support, and the web opening spacing. Openings of the same opening
area but with different shape and spaced c/c at the same distances were investigated, namely
rectangular, hexagonal and circular. The conducted numerical study indicated that castellated
composite beams are more sensitive to different distortional buckling modes in the negative
moment zone. Failure modes were associated with shear and bending, and with the stress
concentration in the area of openings causing early yielding and stiffness degradation effects,
especially when openings are of sharp corners. Circular openings were found to be the most
effective in both the load transfer and distortional buckling resistance. This type of the opening
is therefore considered in numerical investigations of the present study.

MODELING TECHNIQUES USED IN NUMERICAL SIMULATIONS

Numerical simulations are conducted with use of ABAQUS software [ABAQUS/Standard 2005]
in the form of parametrical studies for flanged composite castellated beams in which the web is
made of structural steel I-section arranged with circular openings called hereafter the cellular I-
profile, and the flange made of the reinforced concrete as a slab of the effective width.
Structural steel cellular I-profiles are obtained from the standard IPE profiles of the following
depths: 200 mm, 300 mm, 400 mm, 500 mm and 600 mm, cut in the way shown in Figure 1a)
and then shifted longitudinally and welded to form the resultant castellated shape element
shown in Figure 1 b). The steel grade of S355 according to the Eurocode 3 specification [EN
1993-1-1 2005] is adopted. Reinforced concrete part of 1000x100 mm is made of the concrete
class C50/60 according to the Eurocode 2 specification [EN 1992-1-1 2004]. The reinforcement
of grade B 500 is used and representing 1% of the concrete area. The full composite action is
assumed to be developed between the web of the composite beam, i.e. the steel cellular I-
profile, and the flange of the composite beam, i.e. the reinforced concrete slab. The properties
of structural steel, concrete and reinforcement material are considered at their characteristic
values.
 a)

b)

h/d=1.4, D/d=1.05, S/D=0.5

Figure 1 – Castellation process arrangements for: a) cutting, b) welding
The parametric study is performed for two-span continuous beam static scheme, loaded with
a uniformly distributed load, W, and for different span-to-cellular-I-profile-depth ratios that are
set approximately from 10 (shortest spans) to 30 (longest spans) with an interval of 5. The
static scheme and the section of composite beam series are shown in Figure 2.

a)

b) 100 1000

Section based on
IPE
h D

Figure 2 – Two-span cellular composite beam: a) static scheme, b) cross-section (A-A)

Two types of FE models are considered for the purpose of this study, namely:
a) FE-SS: thin four-node shell elements S4R5 with reduced integration and five degrees of
freedom (DOFs) per node are used for modeling the components of steel cellular I-
profile. The reinforced concrete flange is modeled using thick four-node shell elements
S4R with reduced integration, see Figure 3a. The steel reinforcement in the concrete is
provided by means of REBAR LAYER that is an available option in ABAQUS for
modeling the concrete reinforcement.
b) FE-SB: thin four-node shell elements S4R5 with reduced integration and five DOFs per
node are used for modeling the components of steel cellular I-profile while 3D two-node
beam elements B31 are used for reinforced concrete flange as depicted in Figure 3b .
The steel reinforcement is modeled using the REBAR option provided by ABAQUS for
modeling the reinforcing bars within the beam elements.
 a) b)

Figure 3 – Finite element modeling techniques: a) FE-SS model, b) FE-SB model

In the FE-SS model, the so-called SC model (smeared crack model) available in ABAQUS is
used for concrete material. The stress-strain relationship for concrete is diagrammatically
shown in Figure 4. Details of this type of constitutive law used for the reinforced concrete slab
modeled with use of shell elements are given elsewhere [ABAQUS/Standard 2005]. In this
model, concrete is assumed to be an isotropic material prior to cracking. In tension, concrete is
considered as a linear elastic material up to the uniaxial tensile strength, and then a linear
softening model is used to represent the post failure behavior in tension. The post-cracking
behavior for direct straining across cracks is modeled with a tension stiffening option in
ABAQUS. This tension softening option allows for important effects of interaction between the
reinforcement and cracked concrete to be accounted for. The SHEAR RETENTION option in
ABAQUS is used to consider the linear shear stiffness reduction of open cracks to zero as the
crack opening increases.

fc f c′γ ( ε c / ε c′ )
fc = γ
γ − 1 + ( ε c / ε c′ )
f c′

0.3 f c′
ε0 ε u′ ε
ε c′ εu
f tu

ft

Figure 4 – Stress-strain characteristic of concrete material in SC model

In the FE-SB model, the concrete flange is modeled with use of 3D beam elements B31 and the
full steel-concrete composite action is achieved using MPC option as shown in Figure 3b. The
concrete material is modeled with use of the CI model (cast iron model) with different yield
stresses for tension and compression. The CAST IRON COMPRESSION HARDENING and
CAST IRON TENSIONING HARDENING options are used for specifying the two sets of
hardening data in compression and tension, respectively. A typical stress-strain curve used in
cast iron model is shown in Figure 5. For adequate modeling of the limited strength and ductility
of concrete in tension, the yield stress in tension is adopted of a substantially lower value than
that obtained from the standard tests of concrete.

fc

f c′

εu′ ε
ε c′
f tu

Figure 5 – Stress-strain characteristic of concrete material in CI model

Classical steel plasticity models of elastic-perfectly-plastic type are used for the nonlinear
material effects of both structural steel and reinforcement.

CALIBRATION OF CONCRETE MODEL PARAMETERS

The calibration exercise is performed for a simply supported plain webbed composite beam
tested experimentally elsewhere [Nie et al. 2004]. As a result of studying the effect of different
softening parameters in the SC constitutive model of FE-SS modeling technique on the
behavior and the stress redistribution process, the zero tension stress in the softening region of
concrete deformations is to be attained for the strain across the cracks of 0,1. Results of the
computer simulation with use of the above stated value of the softening phase of concrete in
tension prove to represent the best-fit to the experimental load deflection behavior of the
considered tested composite beam specimen.
The similar exercise is carried out for FE-SB modeling technique for which the value of 1/10 of
the real tension strength of concrete is adopted in the CI constitutive model while in
compression the yield stress is directly equal to the concrete compression strength.
The comparison of load deflection characteristics obtained from computer simulations and that
from the test is given in Figure 6. It is observed that both modeling techniques with concrete
model parameters adopted are in good agreement with experiments, especially in the elastic
region. For inelastic deformations, the SC model of concrete in the FE-SS modeling technique
gives the lower bound estimation up to the point of reinforcement rupture while the CI model in
the FE-SB modeling technique creates the upper bound solution. Since an acceptable
agreement is found for both modeling techniques and used constitutive law parameters of the
mentioned above concrete models, they are adopted hereafter in numerical studies of the
behavior of a series of two-span continuous castellated composite beams.

350
300
250
200
150
Experimental
100 Slab-Shell Model
50 Slab-Beam Model
0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
Displacement (mm)
Figure 6 – Numerical and experimental load-deflection characteristics

PARAMETRIC STUDY FOR IN-PLANE BEHAVIOR

The study presented in this section is directly related to the evaluation of the in-plane limit load
by methods of computer modeling. Since the behavior of cellular composite beams is more
complex than the plan webbed composite ones, the first attempt was to develop a suitable FE-
BB model in which all the elements of the composite beam would be modeled by line finite
elements behaving in the plane of loading. Investigations were in line with those classical ones,
carried out for castellated beams the elastic behavior of which would be represented by the
behavior of Vierendeel plane frame systems. A number of different approaches were examined
for which effective section properties of a uniform section of posts and chord members of
castellated steel I-section were selected to represent the actual behavior of the whole
composite beam system. The concrete was treated as ineffective in tension and removed from
the calculation of section properties while in compression it was treated as fully effective.
Numerical results of the limit load evaluated from first order plastic hinge analysis showed that
there would not be possible to propose the uniform rules for the development of such a simple
FE-BB model in the whole range of the I-section depths and the span lengths. From these
investigations, one can formulate the conclusion that more refined models would be necessary
for the development of the behavior of castellated composite beams.
Such refined numerical models of FE-SS and FE-SB types, as described in the previous
section, are proposed herein in which the castellated structural steel is modeled with use of
shell finite elements while the concrete part is modeled as composed of shell elements in the
former, and line elements in the latter. The material properties used in numerical simulations
carried out with use of both mentioned above models are listed in Table 1.
 Table 1 – Basic material properties of considered two-span continuous composite beam
Model I-section*) Reinforcing bars*) Concrete**)
2 u 2
fy [N/mm2] fy [N/mm2] fc' [N/mm ] ft [N/mm ] ε0
FE-SS 4.0 0.1
355 500 50
FE-SB 0.4 -
*) **)
E= 210000 [N/mm2], E= 37000 [N/mm2]

Since the in-plane ultimate strength is looked at, the general static analysis option in ABAQUS
is used for the estimation of in-plane failure load. Figures 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 show the results
obtained for the cellular I-section increasing depths l/h where the depth of a cellular I-section h
corresponds to d of the depth of original plain webbed I-section being equal to 200 mm,
300 mm, 400 mm, 500 mm and 600mm, respectively.

Figure 7 – Ultimate loads for composite beams fabricated from IPE200

Wu (kN/m)

Figure 8 – Ultimate loads for composite beams fabricated from IPE300

 Figure 9 – Ultimate loads for composite beams fabricated from IPE400
Wu (kN/m)

Figure 10 – Ultimate loads for composite beams fabricated from IPE500

Wu (kN/m)

Figure 11 – Ultimate loads for composite beams fabricated from IPE600

The presented comparison of in-plane failure loads obtained from simulations based on FE-SS
and FE-SB models leads to the following:
1. Application of CI concrete constitutive law and modeling of reinforced concrete slab with
use of line finite elements is simple and giving generally safe predictions if compared
with more advanced modeling of the slab that is based on shell finite elements.
 2. Differences are more pronounced for beams of shorter span lengths than for beams of
longer spans.

PARAMETRIC STUDY FOR DISTORTIONAL OUT-OF-PLANE BEHAVIOR

The proposed FE-SS model is used to determine the RDB failure loads of two-span cellular
composite beams, the in-plane failure loads of which are presented in the previous section. The
inelastic behavior of composite beam materials and geometric nonlinearity due to large
displacements are considered for nonlinear RDB analysis. The first buckling mode shape
obtained from the elastic RDB analysis is used to describe an initially imperfect system. A small
value of the maximum geometric imperfection is applied and equal to half of the thickness of
the I-section web. The option of modified Riks method is chosen in ABAQUS to simulate the
behavior of composite beams not only prior to the limit point but also in the post-limit range, if
applicable [ABAQUS/Standard 2005]. The FE models are able to predict the behavior also in
the negative moment region where the behavior of the cracked concrete is controlled by using
either the tension softening SC model or the ductile CI model of different yield stresses in
tension and compression. The Riks nonlinear stability analysis enables the prediction of the
beam ultimate state and its ultimate strength with regard to buckling effects.
The results of nonlinear stability analysis are added to results of in-plane analyses in Figures 7,
8, 9, 10, and 11 from the previous section in order to directly compare them with the results of
in-plane general static analysis. It can be observed that the ultimate strength is always located
below that corresponding to the in-plane failure load calculated either by FE-SS or FE-SB
modeling techniques. The state of RDB out-of-plane deformations at failure differs for
considered beams, and is dependent predominantly on the beam span length. For the short
span beams, the mode of buckling is rather of the torsional-distortional form and changes to
almost lateral-distortional mode when the span length increases from the shortest one to the
longest one analyzed. As the illustration of this effect, section distortional shapes at the first
opening with reference to internal support and along the post of full-web section following the
first opening are presented in Figure 12 for selected cellular beams fabricated from IPE 600
(corresponds to the ultimate loads presented in Figure 11).

a) l/h=10 b) l/h=20 c) l/h=30

Figure 12 – Section distortional shapes for different l/h: a) 10, b) 20, c) 30

ULTIMATE LOADS OF PLAIN WEBBED AND CELLULAR COMPOSITE BEAMS
The behavior of cellular composite beams is compared hereafter with that of their plain webbed
counterparts. Another study carried by the authors [Salah and Gizejowski 2008] is to present
the results of investigations towards the behavior of plain webbed composite beams with regard
to their behavior in the hogging moment zone. For the same cross-section of the concrete slab,
different IPE profiles, namely IPE200, IPE300, IPE400, IPE500 and IPE600, are used as the
structural steel part of the analyzed two-span composite beams. The in-plane failure load for
these beams is calculated based on the in-plane plastic-hinge mechanism theory. The effect of
shear force is accounted for by assuming that only the web of steel I-section carries the shear
flow. The out-of-plane distortional buckling load is calculated using ABAQUS code with the
same analysis options as used in the present study. Figures 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17 show a
comparison between the in-plane plastic-hinge failure load and the ultimate RDB load evaluated
numerically with use of ABAQUS.
For the lightest section, the in-plane failure load is always smaller than that corresponding to
the RDB ultimate strength and the maximum difference is for the shortest span. This difference
is diminishing when the beam span length increases, see Figure 13. When IPE cross-sections
are heavier, the ultimate strength loads start from a higher value than that of the in-plane failure
load, for the shortest beam spans, and then the difference is constantly decreasing with an
increase of the beam span length. The ultimate RDB load is finally to drop below that of the
plastic-hinge mechanism one, see Figures 14-16. Finally, for the heaviest I-section, both the in-
plane plastic-mechanism load and the ultimate RDB load are not crossing each other. The
ultimate load is for all the beam span lengths less than that of the plastic-hinge mechanism.

Figure 13 – Ultimate loads for IPE200 composite beams

Figure 14 – Ultimate loads for IPE300 composite beams

 Figure 15 – Ultimate loads for IPE400 composite beams

Figure 16 – Ultimate loads for IPE500 composite beams

Figure 17 – Ultimate loads for IPE600 composite beams

On the other hand, Figures 13-17 show that short span plain webbed beams where the effect of
shear stresses is more important than normal stresses due to bending, the shear force is taken
up not only by the web of I-section, as assumed in the plastic-hinge mechanism theory, but also
by the concrete slab. Since the web area in the lighter I-sections is smaller in comparison with
the concrete area than that of heavier I-sections, the difference between the plastic-hinge
mechanism failure load and the ultimate RDB load is greater for beams with short span lengths.
The shear contribution of the concrete slab has also been observed in tests [Liang et al. 2004].
 CONCLUSIONS
The behavior of statically indeterminate castellated composite beams is more complex than that
of simply supported beams. The complex behavior is associated with different instability effects
the castellated composite beam may be subjected to in the negative moment regions where the
bottom compression flange of the beam is unrestrained.
Numerical investigations to predict the in-plane behavior with use of two finite element models,
namely the shell model FE-SS and the beam-shell model FE-SB, are carried out in this paper.
In the former model, the reinforced slab and the steel cellular section are modeled with use of
shell elements and the material modeling is based on the smeared crack constitutive law for
concrete. In the latter model, the reinforced slab is modeled with use of line elements and the
cast iron constitutive law for concrete is used while the steel cellular section is modeled as in
the shell modeling technique. It is found that the FE-SB modeling technique coincides with that
of FE-SS for lighter steel sections where the concrete slab reduces the amount of vertical shear
carried out by the chord tee-sections at the opening and the horizontal shear in the post, and
also for heavier steel sections and longer beam spans where the effect of bending dominates.
Numerical investigations carried out for the out-of-plane distortional behavior prove that the
instability is the governing failure mode more pronounced for shorter beams and all the cellular
steel sections analyzed. The RDB buckling mode is a torsional-distortional one for shorter beam
spans while for longer spans the buckling mode changes towards the lateral-distortional one.
The comparison between the plain webbed and cellular composite beams shows that the beam
plastic-hinge mechanism theory for the in-plane behavior with the shear force contribution
included only in the steel profile leads for lighter I-sections to lower values than those
corresponding to the RDB ultimate load. This behavior is different from that of heavier sections.

REFERENCES
[1] ABAQUS/Standard, User’s Manual I-III, version 6.5, Hibbit, Karlsson and Sorenson Inc.,
Providence, RI, 2005
[2] EN 1992-1-1, Eurocode 2 Part 1-1: Design of concrete structures – Part 1-1: General rules
and rules for buildings, CEN, Brussels 2004
[3] EN 1993-1-1, Eurocode 3 Part 1-1: Design of steel structures – Part 1-1: General rules and
rules for buildings, CEN, Brussels 2005
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