Research on Global Stability of New Disk-type Steel Scaffold

Disk-type steel scaffolding, as a common support for bridge and highway cast-in-place box girder construction, is essential for the overall stability and safety of engineering projects. Currently, there is scant research on the impact of diagonal bracing configurations on the stable load-bearing capacity of scaffolds, particularly considering the variable spans of bridges and highways.To investigate the overall stability of the new disk-type steel scaffold, this study first validates the accuracy of the ABAQUS model based on existing experimental results from the literature. Subsequently, the stability and load-bearing capacity of nine finite element models of the new disk-type steel scaffold with different spans and diagonal brace arrangements are analyzed.The results indicate that for scaffolds without diagonal bracing, the load-bearing capacity does not increase with spans exceeding 10.5 meters. However, scaffolds with diagonal bracing show a significant improvement in load-bearing capacity compared to those without. Yet, when the scaffold span reaches 13.5 meters, the difference in load-bearing capacity enhancement between scaffolds with bracing every alternate bay and those with full-span bracing is minimal.