Behavior of Stainless Steel Columns and Beams

Use of stainless steel in structural applications is most economical in the form of light-gage members. In this type of construction, local buckling and post buckling strength is of major importance. Stainless steels are anisotropic, exhibit different shapes of stress-strain curves in tension and compression, are highly susceptible to cold work, and have low proportional limits. Because of the wide variation in properties this investigation is limited to Type 304, annealed and skin passed. Post buckling strength of stiffened, compressed plate elements is examined and experimental results are presented. The flexural strength and working load deflections of simply-supported hat section beams are calculated, using an effective width concept in the post buckling domain, and recognizing the nonlinearity of the stress-strain curves. Comparison with experimental results is given.