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Fused structures for safer and more economical constructions

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Abstract

Safety margin and construction costs are two conflicting goals for a structure. By providing a fuse in a structure that is triggered at a certain level of over-loading, further increase of loading is prohibited and failure of the structure is changed to a safer mode. As overloading is controlled and a safer failure mode is enforced, a fused structure requires a smaller safety factor thus leading to more economical construction without compromising safety. The use of a fuse will also facilitate safer use of advanced construction materials such as fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) composites. In this case, a fuse can transfer the sudden and dangerous failure mode associated with brittle FRP debonding or rupture to a safe and ductile failure mode at the fuse location. This paper introduces a new type of fused structure as well as an associated design philosophy and approach, in addition to examples of engineering applications.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Engineering, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC, 3001, Australia

    Yu-Fei Wu

  2. Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Durability for Marine Civil Engineering, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, 518061, China

    Ying-Wu Zhou, Biao Hu & Xiaoxu Huang

  3. School of Civil, Environmental and Mining Engineering, The University of Adelaide, South Australia, 5005, Australia

    Scott Smith

Authors
  1. Yu-Fei Wu
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  2. Ying-Wu Zhou
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  3. Biao Hu
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  4. Xiaoxu Huang
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  5. Scott Smith
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Correspondence to Scott Smith.

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Wu, YF., Zhou, YW., Hu, B. et al. Fused structures for safer and more economical constructions. Front. Struct. Civ. Eng. 14, 1–9 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11709-019-0541-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11709-019-0541-7

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