Axial capacity of back-to-back built-up cold-formed stainless steel unlipped channels-Numerical investigation and parametric study

Abstract

In cold-formed steel structures, such as trusses, wall frames and portal frames, the use of back-to-back built-up cold-formed stainless steel unlipped channels as compression members are becoming popular. The advantages of using stainless steel as structural members are corrosion resistance and durability, compared with carbon steel. Current guidance by the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) and the Australian and New Zealand (AS/NZS) standards for built-up carbon steel sections describes a modified slenderness approach, to consider the spacing of the intermediate fasteners. The AISI and AS/NZS do not include the design of stainless-steel built-up channels and very few experimental tests or finite element (FE) analyses have been reported in the literature for such back-to-back cold-formed stainless steel unlipped channel section columns. This paper presents a numerical investigation on the behavior of back-to-back built-up cold-formed stainless steel unlipped channel section columns. Three different grades of stainless steel i.e., duplex EN1.4462, ferritic EN1.4003 and austenitic EN1.4404, were considered. The effects of screw spacing on the axial strength of such built-up unlipped channels were investigated. As expected, most of the short and intermediate columns failed by either local-global or local-distortional buckling interactions, whereas the long columns failed by global buckling. All three grades of stainless-steel stub columns failed by local buckling. A comprehensive parametric study was then carried out covering a wide range of slenderness and different cross-sectional geometries to assess the performance of the current design guidelines of carbon steel built-up sections in accordance with the AISI and AS/NZS. In total, 647 FE models were analyzed. From the results of the parametric study, it was found that the AISI and AS/NZS are conservative by around 14 to 20% for all three grades of stainless steel built-up unlipped channel section columns failed through global buckling. However, the AISI and AS/NZS carbon steel design rules can be un-conservative by around 8 to 13%, when they are used to calculate the axial capacity of those stainless steel built-up unlipped channels which are failed in local buckling.