Journal of Materials and Engineering Structures JMES
Abstract
Cold-Formed steel built-up columns are commonly used as compression member in the industrial roof and long span bridge structures to carry larger load. To improve the strength and stiffness of the cold-formed section, the built-up column with additional stiffeners and lacings are used. This paper reports the results of experimental tests conducted on built-up cold-formed columns, composed with the combination of intermediate and closer stiffeners with pin-ended condition under axial compression. Totally twelve columns with or without intermediate and closer stiffeners were tested to failure. The experimental results aim to quantify the effect of cross-section, intermediate and closer stiffener on the overall performance, including strength, strain and failure modes for the built-up column. The Finite element model was developed by ANSYS software and the model is validated with the experimental results. The built-up column strength predicated by recommended design equations of American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) exhibited good agreement with the ultimate load of built-up columns obtained both by experimental and numerical. Based on this study a recommendation is proposed to DSM for the CFS built -up columns with intermediate and closer stiffeners
