Experimental Investigation of the Axial Capacity of Inelastically Pretwisted Steel Bars

An experimental investigation on the axial load capacity of fixed-end pretwisted steel bars of rectangular solid cross sections is described in this paper. The fixed-end bar test conducted in this study includes bars with both ends griped and embedded in cylindrical slips. More than 200 specimens are considered in this study containing bars with four different cross sections, widths of 20 mm or 30 mm and thicknesses of 3 mm or 6 mm, and three different lengths of 300, 400, and 500 mm. The samples are twisted beyond their elastic limit using torque machine and then subjected to axial load using a compression MTS machine. A set of twisting angles ranges between 0 and 225° is considered for each length. Three samples are tested for each angle then the average of the results is calculated. It is proven experimentally that the permanent twists have influenced the axial strength and the static performance of the pretwisted bars. This improvement is supported by the considerable increase in the critical buckling loads of the bars for certain angles of twists. Multiple regression analysis (MRA) is also conducted using the experimental results to develop mathematical models capable of predicting the critical loads of the tested bars. Results indicate that, with a minimal processing of data, MRA could predict well the critical loads of the pretwisted bars within 99% confidence interval.