Failure prediction of steel components under the coupled effect of excessive plastic deformations and pitting corrosion

Abstract

Nowadays, modern computers have made advanced computational resources accessible to analysts engaged in the field of structural engineering. Through these advancements, the role of numerical modeling has increasingly become more significant in both research and engineering projects. In addition, improved testing facilities and measuring instruments like digital image correlation (DIC) have made material testing more informative than before, and engineers can calibrate more complicated material models to simulate complex phenomena such as plasticity and fracture. All developed testing and numerical modeling techniques come together to form a numerical failure assessment framework for steel structures. Due to the distinct advantages of numerical modeling over full-scale testing, this framework is welldeveloped in many applications (e.g., elastic analyses). However, in many other applications, numerous involved phenomena and their interactions with each other, as well as additional factors (e.g., corrosion), call for more development both in material testing and numerical techniques to customize the framework to better suit the final application. This thesis has focused on the failure assessment of steel components under the coupled effect of extensive plasticity and pitting corrosion. A framework was developed based on experimental material calibration and stochastic numerical modeling approaches.