Equivalent Shell Thickness of Metal Decking

[StructuralEngGuy]

Dear All,

I am modeling a sloped metal deck in ETABS. My first question is, do you all typically use a shell element to do this or the ETABS built in Deck Section modeler? For those that use shell elements, what method do you use to come up with an equivalent thickness of the deck to assign based on the depth and gauge of the decking?

Thanks

 

[Guest262653]

Sorry, but why would you want to model the deck itself?
- if you need diaphragm action on your model just use appropriate joint constraints;
- if you need to transfer vertical load to the surrounding frames just use shells with material type none and apply uniform load to frames (uni or bi directionally);
- if you need to analyse the deck itself, a simple 2D model would be enough.

With this said, if you really need to model it to obtain elastic moments and shear, you can use the section area and inertia around the major axis given in the suppliers' tables and convert it to a rectangular section with two equivalent heights - one for membrane and other for bending (this for 2D behaviour).

If you use 2D elements you'll need orthotropic elements and to tweak the stiffness modifiers accordingly.

Hope it helped.