EXPERIMENTAL AND NUMERICAL INVESTIGATION ON ELEVATOR STEEL UPRIGHTS UNDER ECCENTRIC COMPRESSION

The increasing concentration of the population in urban areas and the need of a high residential capacity have led to the development of tall buildings in which vertical transportation is ensured by suitable elevator systems. In this context, engineers are pushing to design cost-effective tall structures which can guarantee, at the same time, safety and limited cost. Recently, the use of thin-walled structural steel elements is significantly increased for this purpose. The present paper presents an experimental-numerical investigation on steel thin-walled elements under compression used for steel elevators. Two different cross-section members were investigated, considering: i) specimens with an axial force applied in the cross-section centroid and different total lengths and ii) stub-column specimens having an axial force applied with different eccentricities from their centroid. Alongside the experimental study, a large numerical study was developed using finite elements to replicate the experimental results. Numerical and experimental studies made it possible to define the moment (M) – axial force (N) sections domain, which were compared with the theoretical ones obtained on the basis of the procedure provided by EC3-1-3 (and NTC18). It is shown that for the proposed profiles, the expression prosed by the current design provision is generally from the safe side.