Anti-collapse behavior of modular steel buildings with corrugated panels

This paper numerically studies the anti-collapse behavior of the modular steel building (MSB) in the scenario of interior module removal and corner module removal. The vertical displacement, lateral displacement and internal force of a six-storey MSB in a sudden module loss are studied. The reasonability by using rigid body assumption in collapse analysis of the MSB is examined. A refined fracture model of the steel is incorporated into ABAQUS via user subroutine, in which the effects of both stress triaxiality and Lode angle on the fracture ductility of the steel are considered. In the pushover analyses, the effects of the horizontal connection, opening of the wall panel and thickness of the wall panel on the collapse resistance and failure mode of the MSB are studied. The dynamic amplification factor (DAF) of the MSB at the collapse limit state is also obtained. It is found that the rigid body assumption may significantly underestimate the displacement and maximum shear force in the horizontal connection of the MSB. Two types of failure modes of the structure are observed, namely, connection failure-induced collapse and module unit failure-induced collapse. Among the studied parameters, the effect of the opening size of the wall panel on the behavior of the structure is the most significant. In the scenario of the interior module removal and corner module removal, the DAFs of the structure at the collapse limit state range from 1.20–1.29 and 1.27–1.50, respectively.