Inelastic buckling and strengths of steel I-section arches with central torsional restraints

The elastic flexural–torsional buckling behaviour of arches with a central elastic torsional restraint has been reported elsewhere by the authors, and it was found that a central elastic torsional restraint restricts the buckling shape of an elastic arch and increases its elastic buckling resistance. However, both the inelastic buckling and strength of arches with a central elastic torsional restraint have hitherto not been investigated. It is not known whether the threshold stiffness for elastic buckling can be applied to arches which buckle inelastically, nor is it known how to determine the strength of steel arches with a central elastic torsional restraint. This paper modifies a finite element model for the nonlinear inelastic flexural–torsional analysis of steel I-section arches by including the effects of elastic restraints, and uses it to investigate the influence of central elastic torsional restraints on the inelastic flexural–torsional buckling and strength of steel I-section arches. It is found that a central elastic torsional restraint increases the strength of steel arches, but that the increase in strength decreases as the modified slenderness of the arches decreases. The threshold value of the stiffness of a central elastic torsional restraint at which the inelastic strength of an arch is equal to that of the corresponding arch with a rigid restraint is related to both the modified slenderness and included angle of the arch. For an arch with a low modified slenderness and with a small included angle which buckles inelastically, the threshold restraint stiffness is much smaller than that for an arch which buckles elastically. Design formulae for the strengths of steel I-section arches in uniform bending and in uniform compression with a central elastic torsional restraint are proposed. Comparisons with finite element results show that the proposed formulae provide good predictions for the strength of thin-walled steel I-section arches with a central elastic torsional restraint.