In this paper a precise model is established for deflection prediction of mechanically jointed beams with partial composite action. High accuracy of the proposed method is demonstrated through comparison with a comprehensive finite element (FE) modelling for a timber-concrete partial composite beam. Next, the obtained numerical results are compared with gamma-method, a well-known simplified solution for timber engineers according to the Eurocode 5. Validity and accuracy level of the gamma-method are investigated for various boundary conditions as well as different values of beam length-to-depth ratio, and discussed in details.
This paper deals with stability analysis of clamped rectangular orthotropic thin plates subjected to uniformly distributed shear load around the edges. Due to the nature of this problem, it is impossible to present mathematically exact analytical solution for the governing differential equations. Consequently, all existing studies in the literature have been performed by means of different numerical approaches. Here, a closed-form approach is presented for simple and fast prediction of the critical buckling load of clamped narrow rectangular orthotropic thin plates. Next, a practical modification factor is proposed to extend the validity of the obtained results for a wide range of plate aspect ratios. To demonstrate the efficiency and reliability of the proposed closed-form formulas, an accurate computational code is developed based on the classical plate theory (CPT) by means of differential quadrature method (DQM) for comparison purposes. Moreover, several finite element (FE) simulations are performed via ANSYS software. It is shown that simplicity, high accuracy, and rapid prediction of the critical load for different values of the plate aspect ratio and for a wide range of effective geometric and mechanical parameters are the main advantages of the proposed closed-form formulas over other existing studies in the literature for the same problem.
