Experimental study on the structural behavior of cast-steel joint of the Laoshan Velodrome for the Beijing Olympics

Experimental study on the cast-steel articulated joint to be used in the Laoshan Velodrome for Beijing Olympics has been carried out.The structural behavior of the joint under various loading conditions was evaluated by both static full-scale experiment and FEM analysis.By utilizing a well-designed spreader beam,four load cases complying with the design requirement were successfully applied to the joint to investigate its load-bearing capacity and rotation performance.Elastic analysis was carried out with the aid of general-purpose FEM package ABAQUS,which focused on the contact relations between different parts of the joint.The stress results from the FEM calculation agreed well with the experimental results.Based on the validated FEM model,evaluation of structural behavior of the cast steel articulated joint was finally presented.The experimental and FE analysis results show that the cast-steel joint has good rotation performance and is safe under design loads.