Damage Scenarios Based Topological Vulnerability Analysis of Truss Structures

Abstract:

Important structures may be fatally damaged by extreme events such as terrorist attack. Structural vulnerability analysis is becoming one of efficient theoretical methods to improve structural design, so as to increase structural safety. Structural topological vulnerability analysis can reveal the inherent structural weakness which is irrelevant to the external load by focusing on the internal factor of structural vulnerability. The matrix analysis method was used to study the structure geometrical stability which is a measurement of structural performance. A 2-D and a 3-D truss structures were used to study the effectiveness of the allocation of redundant components in structures, as well as the impact extent of different vulnerable scenarios to structural performance. It is found that the reasonable allocation of the redundant components may limit the vulnerable scenario to a relatively small region, whereas blindly increasing component redundancy may not serve any purpose to reduce the structural vulnerability; furthermore, due to the existence of local mechanisms, the event impact to the structural system is different for various vulnerable scenarios. With the help of topological vulnerability analysis, measures can be taken to reduce the structural vulnerability.

Key words:Topological Vulnerability, Damage Scenario, Redundancy, Mechanism Determination, Local Mechanism