Optimization and Application of Next Generation Steels in Construction

该研究旨在通过推进下一代钢材在建筑施工中的应用，提高知识水平，从而实现具有可持续性和结构弹性的建筑，同时保持经济效率和国内钢铁生产的竞争力。为汽车应用开发了大量新型高性能钢材，取得了巨大成功，但在将这些钢材广泛应用于建筑结构之前，必须克服各种技术挑战。一个潜在的应用是建筑物中的冷成型钢立柱和托梁，这些建筑物采用厚度类似于下一代汽车钢的钢板。 使用这些新一代钢材可能带来的好处包括更有效的材料使用和建造，以及更低的初始和生命周期成本。这些钢材还为结构工程师和建筑师提供了在设计和施工中创造新解决方案的潜力。 本研究的目的是克服下一代钢材应用于冷弯型钢建筑结构的障碍，并开始优化这些钢材在该建筑系统中的使用。在冷弯型钢框架中使用新一代钢材的优化和应用需要克服科学障碍：工程设计需要对这些独特的强而细长的构件进行广义的强度预测，需要对结构应用所需的材料延展性有更深入的理解，以便能够以最小的成本定制新的钢材以满足它们的需求，为了效率，需要特定于建筑应用的优化形状，并且需要原型解决方案来提供上级性能的实验证据。通过沿着计算非线性倒塌模拟和形状优化，将对材料、连接和构件规模进行一系列有针对性的实验，以解决在建筑中采用下一代钢材的障碍。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This research aims to advance knowledge leading to buildings with sustainability and structural resilience, while maintaining economic efficiency and the competitiveness of domestic steel production, by advancing the application of next-generation steels into building construction. A large class of new, high-performance steels has been developed for automotive applications to great success, but various technical challenges must be overcome before these steels can be widely integrated into building construction. A potential application is cold-formed steel studs and joists in buildings that employ sheet steels with thicknesses similar to next generation automotive steels. The possible benefits of using these next-generation steels include more efficient material use and construction, and lower initial and life-cycle costs. These steels also offer the potential for structural engineers and architects to create novel solutions in design and construction. The objective of this research is to overcome the barriers in the application of next generation steels to cold-formed steel building construction and begin the optimization of the uses of these steels in this building system. Optimization and application of the use of next generation steels in cold-formed steel framing requires overcoming scientific barriers: generalized strength prediction of these uniquely strong but slender members is needed for engineering design, a deeper understanding of the material ductility that structural applications require is needed so that the new steels can be tailored to their demands at minimum cost, optimized shapes specific to construction applications are needed for efficiency, and prototyped solutions are needed to provide experimental evidence of superior performance. A series of targeted experiments at the material, connection, and member scale will be studied along with computational nonlinear collapse simulations and shape optimization to address the barriers to the adoption of next generation steel in construction.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.