General working features of axially compressive members revealed by structural stressing state theory

This paper reveals the general working law of compressive members by the stressing state modeling and analysis of their simulative response date. Firstly, the finite element simulation of compressive members with various slenderness ratios obtains the displacement, stress, and strain energy data at individual loading levels. Then, the response data are taken as state variables to build the parameters characterizing the stressing states of compressive members. Further, the clustering analysis (CA) criterion is proposed to detect the mutation points in the evolution curves of characteristic parameters with the load increase according to the structural failure law declared in structural stressing state theory. Correspondingly, the stressing state modes are built to verify their mutation features around the detected characteristic points. The characteristic points reveal the starting point of the member’s failure process, and the elastoplastic branch (EPB) point in the member’s normal working process, which could lay the new basis for analyzing the working behavior of compressive members and updating their design codes. Finally, it is verified that the bearing capacity design of compressive members based on the EPB points could have the higher performance-cost ratios with reasonable margins of safety.