International Journal of Engineering and Innovative Technology (IJEIT)

Volume 2, Issue 1, July 2012

Finite Element Analysis of Castellated Steel

Beam
M.R.Wakchaure, A.V. Sagade
Abstract Use of castellated beam for various structures
rapidly gaining appeal. This is due to increased depth of section
without any additional weight, high strength to weight ratio,
their lower maintenance and painting cost. The principle
advantage of castellated beam is increase in vertical bending
stiffness, ease of service provision and attractive appearance.
However one consequence of presence of web opening is the
development of various local effects. In this paper steel I section
was selected, castellated beams were fabricated with increase in
depth of web openings. To analyze the behavior of castellated
steel beams having an I-shaped cross-section, modeling is
conducted using finite element software package ANSYS14.
Analysis is carried out on beam with two point load and simply
supported support condition. The deflection at centre of beam
and study of various failure patterns are studied. The beams with
increase in depth are then compared with each other and with
parent section for various parameters and for serviceability
criteria. From the finite element analysis results, it is concluded
that, the Castellated steel beam behaves satisfactorily with
regards to serviceability requirements up to a maximum web
opening depth of 0.6h. Castellated beams have proved to be
efficient for moderately loaded longer spans where the design is
controlled by deflection.

structure is intended. While designing a power plant

structure or a multi-storied building, the traditional
structural steel framing consists of beams and girders with
solid webs. These hinder the provision of pipelines and air
conditioning ducts, electrical wiring required for satisfactory
functioning for which the structure is put up.
The re-routing of services (or increasing the floor height at
the design stage for accommodating them) leads to additional
cost and is generally unacceptable. The provision of beams
with web openings has become an acceptable engineering
practice, and eliminates the probability of a service engineer
cutting holes subsequently in inappropriate locations. Beams
with web openings can be competitive in such cases, even
though other alternatives to solid web beams such as stub
girders, trusses etc are available. This form of construction
maintains a smaller construction depth with placement of
services within the girder depth, at the most appropriate
locations. The introduction of an opening in the web of the
beam alters the stress distribution within the member and
also influences its collapse behavior.

Index Terms- Castellated Beam, Web Opening, Cellular

Beam, Virendeel Mechanism, Plastic Hinges.

I. INTRODUCTION
Engineers are constantly trying to improve the materials
and practices of design and construction. One such
improvement occurred in built-up structural members in the
mid-1930, an engineer working in Argentina, Geoffrey
Murray Boyd, is castellated beam. Castellated beams are
such structural members, which are made by flame cutting a
rolled beam along its centerline and then rejoining the two
halves by welding so that the overall beam depth is increased
by 50% for improved structural performance against
bending. Since Second World War many attempts have been
made by structural engineers to find new ways to decrease the
cost of steel structures. Due to limitations on minimum
allowable deflection, the high strength properties of
structural steel cannot always be utilized to best advantage.
As a result several new methods aimed at increasing stiffness
of steel member, without any increase in weight of steel
required. Castellated beam is one of the best solutions.
The responsibility of a Structural Engineer lies in not
merely designing the structure based on safety and
serviceability considerations but he also has to consider the
functional requirements based on the use to which the

Fig.1 Terminology

Web Post: The cross-section of the castellated beam where

the section is assumed to be a solid cross-section.
Throat Width: The length of the horizontal cut on the root
beam. The length of the portion of the web that is included
with the flanges.
Throat Depth: The height of the portion of the web that
connects to the flanges to form the tee section.
II. FORMULATION OF RESEARCH OBJECTIVES
To achieve economy, castellated beam fabricated from its
parent solid webbed I section should have maximum
possible depth. An available literature does not deal with the

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behavior of castellated beam with increase in depth of

openings. This paper investigates the effect of web openings
on various structural aspects of castellated beam, various
modes of failures, and effect on deflection with increase in
the depth of web openings are analyzed with the help of finite
element analysis software ANSYS 14. Depth of beam
increased in processes of castellation by 40, 50 and 60%, with
hexagonal shaped openings of angle 600. Since the
castellated beams are relatively slender and have web
openings, which have an influence on their resistance. The
major failure modes of castellated beams are web post
buckling [1]-[2] and lateral-torsional buckling. The failure
modes mainly depend on area of openings, location of
opening, length of the tee-section above and below the
opening, opening depth, type of opening and type of loading.
The experimental testing on steel beams with web opening of
various shapes and sizes was also carried out. Six potential
failure modes [2] associated with castellated beams areA. Formation of Flexure Mechanism
This mode of failure can occur when a section is subject to
pure bending. The span subjected to pure bending moment,
the tee-sections above and below the holes yielded in a
manner similar to that of a plain webbed beam, although the
spread of yield towards the central axis was stopped by the
presence of the holes by which time the two throat sections
had become completely plastic in compression and in
tension.
B. Lateral-Torsional Buckling
Non-composite castellated beams are more susceptible to
lateral-torsional buckling than composite beams due to lack
of lateral support to the compression flange [5]. The lateral
torsional buckling behavior of castellated beams is similar
to that of plain webbed beams. The holes had a significant
influence on lateral-torsional buckling behavior.
C. Formation of Vierendeel Mechanism
Vierendeel bending is caused by the need to transfer the
shear force across the opening to be consistent with the rate
of change of bending moment, in the absence of local or
overall instability, hexagonal castellated beams have two
basic modes of plastic collapse, depending on the opening
geometry. The failure is dependent on the presence of a shear
force of high magnitude in the holes through span. It is found
that all steel beams with large web openings of various
shapes subjected to important parameter in assessing the
structural behavior of perforated sections is the length of tee
sections above and below the web opening which controls the
magnitude of local Vierendeel moments acting on the tee
section. [3].
D. Rupture of the Welded Joint in a Web Post
Rupture of a welded joint in a web-post can result when the
width of the web-post or length of welded joint is small. This
mode of failure is caused by the action of the horizontal
shearing force in the web-post, which is needed to balance
the shear forces applied at the points of contra flexure at the

ends of the upper I-section.

E. Shear Bucking of a Web Post
The horizontal shear force in the web-post is associated
with double curvature bending over the height of the post. In
castellated beam one inclined edge of the opening will be
stressed in tension, and the opposite edge in compression and
buckling will cause a twisting effect of the web post along its
height.
F. Compression Buckling of a Web Post
This mode of failure is similar to the crippling of the web
in a plain webbed beam. It can occur in regions near
concentrated loads or reaction forces. The web post may
exhibit this mode of failure when it is subjected to same load
condition introduced by secondary beam. [5]
III. ANALYSIS BY ANSYS
A. Model Geometry: GuidelinesISMB 150 was selected as a parent section for fabricating
castellated beam. Following guidelines are followed for
constructing model of castellated beam from parent section.
The hole should be centrally placed in the web and
eccentricity of the opening is avoided as far as possible.
Stiffened openings are not always appropriate, unless
they are located in low shear and low bending moment
regions.
Web opening should be away from the support by at
least twice the beam depth, D or 10% of the span, whichever
is greater.
The best location for the opening is within the middle
third of the span.
Clear Spacing between the openings should not be less
than beam depth D.
The best location for opening is where the shear force is
the lowest.
The diameter of circular openings was generally
restricted to 0.5D.
Depth of rectangular openings should not be greater
than 0.5D and the length not greater than 1.5D for
un-stiffened openings.
The clear spacing between such openings should be at
least equal the longer dimension of the opening.
The depth of the rectangular openings should not be
greater than 0.6D and the length not greater than 2D for
stiffened openings. The above rule regarding spacing
applies.
Corners of rectangular openings should be rounded.
Point loads should not be applied at less than D from
side of the adjacent opening.
If stiffeners are provided at the openings, the length of
the welds should be sufficient to develop the full strength of
the stiffener.
If above rules are followed ,the additional deflection due
to each opening taken as 3% of the mid-span deflection of the
beam without the opening.

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Fig.2 Mathematical Formation of Castellated Beam

B. ANSYS Analysis Procedure

With finite element modeling a three-dimensional (3D)
finite element model is developed to simulate the behavior of
castellated steel beams having an I-shaped cross-section.
Modeling was done using finite element software package
ANSYS 14. Zirakian and Showkati [2] and provided useful
information in the form of failure loads, failure modes,
loadlateral deflection curves and loadstrain curves that
could be used in developing finite element models.
Geometrical details of analyzed beams are simulated using
the four-node shell element. This element has five degrees of
freedom at each node, two translations and three rotations,
which enable explicit simulation of various buckling
deformations. Linear elastic material with Youngs modulus
E = 2.1 105 MPa and Poissons ratio = 0.3, In this study,
the effects of residual stresses and welding of two parts have
not been considered [5]. Each I-shaped beam is characterized
by its span L, flange width bf, flange thickness tf, depth of
parent h, depth of castellated beam hc and web thickness tw.
Web perforations were hexagonal in shape, with side (sh)
and are uniformly spaced at distance S along the span of the
beam. The size of the elements along the span of the beam is
restricted not to exceed twice the size of the element across
the flange. Several mesh configurations are attempted until
the above-provided limitations are set after providing
convergence of the predicted buckling load within reasonable
execution time. Detailing of various beams as below:
For Ic 210
Span L =2000mm, hc=210mm, bf = 80 mm, tf = 7.6 mm,
HW = 194.8 mm, tw = 8 mm
For Ic 225L =2000mm, hc=225mm, bf = 80 mm, tf = 7.6 mm,
HW = 209.8 mm, tw = 8 mm
For Ic 240L =2000mm hc=240mm, bf = 80 mm, tf = 7.6 mm,
hw
= 224.8 mm, tw = 8 mm,
It should be noted that, although the thickness of the
elements does not appear in the figure, it is used by ANSYS
to generate the stiffness matrix of the modeled beam.

Fig.3 Typical Finite Element Mesh for a Castellated Beam

The beam geometry is defined using a Global Cartesian

coordinate system with its origin located at the mid-height of
the cross-section at the right end of the beam. As indicated in
Fig.3, the depth of the beam is directed along the Y-axis
while its longitudinal axis coincides with the Z-axis.

Fig.4 Position and Orientation

Fig.5 Position of force application for Ic 210

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Fig.9 Total Deflection of Ic 225 mm

Fig.6 Position Of force application for Ic 210

Fig. 10 Total deflection for Ic 240

Fig.7 Total Deflection of ISMB 150

Fig.11 Maximum Stress of ISMB 150mm

Fig.8 Total Deflection of Ic 210 mm

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Graph.1Load v/s Deflection ISMB150

Fig.12 Maximum Stress of Ic 210mm

Fig.13 Maximum Stress of Ic 225mm

Graph.2 Load v/s Deflection for Ic210

Fig.14 Maximum Stress of Ic 240mm

IV. RESULTS OF ANSYS ANALYSIS

All Tables are shown in Appendix.
Graph.3 Load v/s Deflection for Ic225

369

modes of failure, based only on strength criteria.

The finite element analysis effectively captured the
different failure modes of all the beams. From this analysis, it
was observed that as the depth of opening increases, stress
concentrations increases at the hole corners (Vierendeel
effect) and at load application point. The results also confirm
that the flexural stiffness of castellated beams decrease as the
depth of opening increases. So by taking corrective measures,
i.e. by rounding hole corners, providing reinforcement at
critical section, providing plate below point load, etc. the
serviceability performance of castellated beams can be
improved in practice. It is conclude that the castellated beams
are well accepted for industrial buildings, power plant and
multistoried structures, where generally loads are less and
spans are more with its economy and satisfactory
serviceability performance.
REFERENCES

[1] Richard Redwoodland Sevak Demirdjian Castellated Beam

Web Buckling In Shear Journal of Structural Engineering
1october 1998/1207.

Graph.4 Load v/s Deflection for Ic240

[2] Tadeh Zirakian, Hossein Showkati Distortional Buckling of

Castellated Beams (Journal of Constructional Steel Research
62, pp. 863871, 2006
[3] Nikos D. Lagaros, Lemonis D. Psarras, Manolis Papadrakakis,
Giannis Panagiotou Optimum Design of Steel Structures with
Web Openings Engineering Structures 30, pp. 25282537,
2008.
[4] H. R. Kazemi Nia Korrani1, M. Z. Kabir, S. Molanaei
Lateral-Torsional Buckling of Castellated Beams Under End
Moments International J. of Recent Trends in Engineering
and Technology, Vol. 3, No. 5, May 2010.
[5] M.R. Soltani, A. Bouchar , Nonlinear FE analysis of the
ultimate behavior of steel castellated beamsJournal of
Constructional Steel Research 70 (2012), pp. 101114
[6] Ehab Ellobody Nonlinear Analysis of Cellulars Steel Beams
Under Combined Buckling Modes (Thin-Walled Structures
52 (2012), pp. 6679).

Graph.5 Comparision of Ansys Results

The beams tested above cannot be compared directly

among themselves because of different failure modes of
beams.
Serviceability limit for beam= L/325
=1900/325
= 5.846 mm

[7] K.F. Chung a, T.C.H. Liu b, Journal of Constructional Steel

Research 57 (2001), pp. 467490.

V. CONCLUSION
From the finite element analysis results, it is concluded
that, the Castellated steel beam behaves satisfactorily with
regards to serviceability requirements up to a maximum web
opening depth of 0.6h. Castellated beams have holes in its
web, which lead to local effects in the beams. This causes the
beams to fail in different local failure modes, which reduces
their virgin load carrying capacity. Hence, it is irrational to
compare the structural behavior of beams having different

370

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Wakchaure M.R. *, ME Structures, Faculty, Civil
Engineering Department, Amrutvahini College of
Engineering, Sangamner, Maharashtra, India.

Sagade A.V. *, ME Structures, Faculty, Civil

Engineering Department, Amrutvahini College of
Engineering, Sangamner, Maharashtra, India.
EMAIL: [email protected]

Appendix
Sr. No.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13

Load ( kN)

Deflection (mm)

Sr. No.

Load ( kN)

Deflection (mm)

0
10

0
0.6648

20

1.3338

1
2
3

0
10
20

0
0.43572
0.87945

30

2.0085

30

1.3412

40

2.6839

40

1.7549

50

3.3652

50

2.1888

60

4.0506

60

2.5782

70

4.7402

70

3.0065

80

5.4341

80

3.4618

90

6.1325

10

90

3.8235

100

6.8345

11

100

4.2372

110

7.5412

12

110

4.651

120

8.2522

13

120

5.0647

Sr.No.

Load ( kN)

Deflection (mm)

1
2
3

0
10
20

0
0.8099
1.6199

30

2.4298

40

3.2397

50

4.0497

60

4.8596

Table.III Load Vs Deflection for Ic 225

&
Table.IV Load v/s Deflection for Ic 240
Sr. No.

Load ( kN)

Deflection (mm)

10

0.8934

20

1.8018

30

2.7130

40

3.6347

70

5.6695

80

6.4795

10

90

7.2894

11

100

8.0993

50

4.5686

12

110

8.8534

60

5.5123

13

115

9.3143

65

5.9880

Table I. Load and Deflections of ISMB 150

&

Table II.Load and Deflections of Ic=210

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Sr. No.

Beam

1
2
3

ISMB
150
Ic 210
Ic 225

Ic 240

Deflection
(mm)

5.84

Load by
ANSYS
(kN)
135
85
70
65

Local Mode Of Failure

Global Mode of failure

Failure of compression flange

Lateral Torsional buckling

Failure of compression flange

Failure of compression flange and
Vierendeel effect
Vierendeel effect and Failure of
compression flange

Flexural buckling of Web

Web buckling
Flexural buckling of Web

Table V. Comparison of ANSYS Results for Serviceability Limit

372