LIGHTSTEEL: New Generation of Lightweight Steel Elements for Sustainable Resilient Construction

现代社会受到气候变化等经济和环境问题的挑战，要求工程师去现代社会受到气候变化等经济和环境问题的挑战，要求工程师开发更高效和可持续的建筑解决方案。地震易发地区的城市化和人口的快速增长也增加了社会对地震相关危害的暴露，迫切需要更具弹性的结构系统。冷弯型钢（CFS）结构可以为传统建筑系统提供一种具有成本效益和可持续发展的替代方案，并且由于其重量轻，施工快速和完全可回收性，在现代建筑中越来越多地被采用。然而，典型的CFS结构的抗屈曲能力和延性较低，限制了其在地震带和高层建筑中的实际应用。本研究项目旨在开发一种具有高结构性能的新型CFS结构组合体系，用于震区多层建筑的快速施工。新系统受益于高性能CFS组合元件，通过考虑其后屈曲行为，在轴向和弯曲载荷下进行了优化。这将允许在高层建筑、大型开放空间和灵活的建筑设计中采用该系统。这种创新的结构解决方案可以减少所需的结构重量，因此，与传统钢结构相比，建筑成本和隐含碳减少了30-50%。将开发先进的设计框架，以获得在正常（重力和风）和极端（强地震）荷载条件下具有最佳结构性能的经济有效的结构。该项目通过开发基本的理解、先进的优化工具和基于性能的设计指南来弥合知识差距，从而使新的高性能CFS结构系统可以在实践中广泛应用。

Modern society is challenged by economic and environmental issues such as climate change, requiring engineers to deModern society is challenged by economic and environmental issues such as climate change, requiring engineers to develop more efficient and sustainable construction solutions. The urbanisation and rapid population growth in earthquake-prone regions have also increased societal exposure to seismic related hazards and the urgent need for more resilient structural systems. Cold-formed steel (CFS) structures can offer a cost-effective and sustainable alternative to traditional construction systems, and are being increasingly adopted in modern construction due to their lightweight, rapid construction and full recyclability. However, typical CFS structures have low buckling resistance and ductility, which limits their practical application especially in seismic regions and tall buildings. This research project aims to develop a novel CFS structural built-up system with high structural performance for rapid construction of multi-storey buildings in seismic regions. The new system benefits from high-performance CFS built-up elements optimised under axial and flexural loading by taking into account their post-buckling behaviour. This will allow for adoption of this system in tall buildings, large open spaces and flexible architectural design. Such innovative structural solutions can reduce the required structural weight, and hence, the construction costs and embodied carbon by 30-50% compared to conventional steel constructions. An advanced design framework will be developed to obtain cost-effective structures with optimum structural performance under normal (gravity and wind) and extreme (strong earthquake) load conditions. This project bridges the knowledge gap by developing fundamental understanding, advanced optimisation tools and performance-based design guidelines so that the new high performance CFS structural system can be widely used in practice.