Distortional Buckling of Cold-Formed Steel Members1
Publication: Journal of Structural Engineering
Volume 132, Issue 4
Abstract
Cold-formed steel members are widely employed in steel construction because they are lighter and more economical than traditional hot-rolled ones. Nowadays, the easy availability and accessible cost of high-strength low-alloy steels, weathering steels, and zinc-coated steels have led to members with high width/thickness ratios, rendering them even more susceptible to local buckling and to another buckling mode called distortional buckling, affecting mainly members with edge stiffeners (lipped channels, Z sections, hat, rack, etc.). Hence, current versions of technical codes for cold-formed steel design have warned about the importance of this phenomenon, outlining procedures to evaluate member strength based on distortional buckling, e.g., the simplified model of the Australian/New Zealand Standard AS/NZS 4600 proposed by Lau and Hancock, also adopted by the Brazilian Standard NBR 14762. In this study, an analysis is made about lipped channels under compression and bending, comparing the results obtained through the Brazilian Standard simplified model against those of the elastic analysis via the finite strip method, evaluating the conformity and the range of validity of the simplified model application.
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Acknowledgment
The writers would like to acknowledge FAPESP, São Paulo State Research Support Foundation, Brazil.
References
American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI). (2001). “North American specification for the design of cold-formed steel structural members.” Washington, D.C.
Australian/New Zealand Standard. (1996). “Cold-formed steel structures.” AS/NZS 4600, Australia.
Batista, E. M., et al. (2000). “Reliability and progress in design codes.” Proc., 3rd Int. Conf. on Coupled Instabilities in Metal Structures—CIMS’2000, Imperial College Press, Lisboa, Portugal, 661–671.
Brazilian Association of Technical Specifications. (2001). “Design of cold-formed steel structural members.” NBR 14762, ABNT, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (in Portuguese).
Chodraui, G. M. B. (2003). “Distortional buckling of cold-formed steel members under compression and bending.” MSc thesis, School of Engineering of São Carlos, Univ. of São Paulo, São Carlos, Brazil (in Portuguese).
Lau, S. C. W., and Hancock, G. J. (1987). “Distortional buckling formulas for channel columns.” J. Struct. Eng., 113 (5), 1063–1078.
Schafer, B. W. (2001). “Finite strip analysis of thin-walled members.” CUFSM: Cornell University—Finite strip method.
Schafer, B. W., and Peköz, T. P. (1999). “Laterally braced cold-formed steel flexural members with edge stiffened flanges.” J. Struct. Eng., 125(2), 118–127.
Silvestre, N., and Camotim, D. (2004). “Towards an efficient design against distortional buckling: Formulae for C- and Z-section cold-formed steel members.” Proc., Structural Stability Research Council (SSRC), Annual Stability Conf., Long Beach, Calif., 239–263.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Structural Engineering
Volume 132 • Issue 4 • April 2006
Pages: 636 - 639
Copyright
© ASCE.
History
Received: Nov 29, 2004
Accepted: Aug 23, 2005
Published online: Apr 1, 2006
Published in print: Apr 2006
Notes
Presented at the 17th International Specialty Conference on Cold-Formed Steel Structures.
Note. Associate Editor: Benjamin W. Schafer
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