Organisers: Prof. Leroy Gardner, Imperial College London, UK ; Dr. Sheida Afshan, University of Southampton, UK ; Dr. Katherine Cashell, University College London, UK & Dr. Marios Theofanous, University of Birmingham, UK
Emails: leroy.gardner@imperial.ac.uk ; S.Afshan@soton.ac.uk ; k.cashell@ucl.ac.uk ; m.theofanous@bham.ac.uk
Summary: In recent years, stainless steel has gained significant attention from the construction industry and research community owing to its excellent mechanical and physical properties. Significant progress has been made in terms of incorporating these special material characteristics, and in particular the strain hardening and high ductility, in design codes. However, stainless steel connections have received much less attention compared with individual members despite being critical during an extreme event. Often, the connections are the parts of a structure which are required to undergo substantial strength and ductility demands in scenarios such as a fire or sudden member loss.
This session aims to bring together researchers working on the structural behaviour, design and computational modelling of stainless steel connections under static and extreme loading and provide a forum for the exchange of ideas and research findings. Topics in this session will include the behaviour of stainless steel material and connections subjected to different loading conditions (e.g. static, fire, impact, cyclic/seismic, fatigue, etc.), modelling of stainless steel connections for practical structural analysis and the behaviour of structural systems and frames which are often governed by the behaviour of the connections. Although this session will focus on stainless steel connections, papers on connections made of other nonlinear materials such as structural aluminium and high strength steel are also welcome.