Steel I section sculpture 1

[phuduhudu]

I have been asked to assess the structure for a temporary 12m high steel sculpture which is basically the outline of a person using heavy 260x260mm I sections cantilevering out of concrete base. The I sections face out from the person with their weak axis. It is in an exposed location so I get wind deflections of about 600mm which is about 5% of height. It has a first mode natural frequency of 1.1Hz. Would anyone be concerned about the large defections which would only occur in the maximum design wind?

 

[driftLimiter]

Yes, 5% is a significant amount of drift.

I would ensure a 2nd order analysis is taking place to evaluate the stresses at that deflection.

ALso anchorage and foundation should be sufficient to resist the 2nd order effects.

Then I would check deflection at a more frequent level of wind 10 yr mean or something, to see if it looks wrong.

If its a normal windy day and the thing is flying around like a flag that is an undesirable outcome from a serviceability standpoint.

If its the design wind pressure and it sees large deflections I don't that that would be too surprising to anyone as long as it stands up.

 

[phuduhudu]

Thanks. 2nd order effects should not be large since there is only selfweight of the steel sections and of course it will need to resist overturning for design loads.

 

[Tstruct]

Could you share a picture of the structure?

 

[phuduhudu]

Something like these [URL unfurl="true"]https://www.visitvalencia.com/en/events-valencia/monumental-sculptures-julian-opie-valencia[/url]