Effective width equations accounting for element interaction for cold-formed stainless steel square and rectangular hollow sections

Rectangular hollow sections featuring high height-to-width (aspect) ratios have shown to offer improved ultimate capacity due to the effects of the interaction between the elements within the cross-section which are particularly significant for slender cross-sections (class 4) undergoing local buckling. The European design rules dealing with stainless steel, EN 1993- 1-4 [1], utilises the concept of cross-section classification and the effective width method for the design of slender cross-sections susceptible to local buckling neglecting such interaction effects, hence resulting in conservative predictions. This paper examines the benefits of element interaction effects on cold-formed ferritic stainless steel compressed sections on the basis of carefully validated finite element models. Following parametric studies, the applicability of various alternative design approaches accounting for element interaction to ferritic stainless steel is assessed and effective width curves, as well as a Class 3 limiting slenderness equation, are derived herein as an explicit function of the aspect ratio. Comparisons with the loads achieved in the FE models have shown that the proposed effective width equations allowing for the benefits of element interaction improve capacity predictions making design more cost-effective.Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovació

Strength enhancements in cold-formed structural sections — Part I: Material testing

This paper describes a material test programme carried out as part of an extensive study into the prediction of strength enhancements in cold-formed structural sections. The experiments cover a wide range of cross-section geometries – twelve Square Hollow Sections (SHS), five Rectangular Hollow Sections (RHS) and one Circular Hollow Section (CHS), and materials – austenitic (EN 1.4301, 1.4571 and 1.4404), ferritic (EN 1.4509 and 1.4003), duplex (EN 1.4462) and lean duplex (EN 1.4162) stainless steel and grade S355J2H carbon steel. The experimental techniques implemented, the generated data and the analysis methods employed are fully described. The results from the current test programme were combined with existing measured stress-strain data on cold-formed sections from the literature and following a consistent analysis of the combined data set, revised values for Young’s modulus E and the Ramberg-Osgood material model parameters n, n' 0.2,u and n'0.2,1.0 are recommended. A comparison between the recommended values and the codified values provided in AS/NZS 4673, SEI/ASCE-8 and EN 1993-1-4 is also presented. The test results are also used in a companion paper for developing suitable predictive models to determine the strength enhancements in cold-formed structural sections that arise during the manufacturing processes