Elastic Buckling Loads of Cold-Formed Steel Channel Sections with Perforations

Abstract

Cold-formed perforated steel sections have been commonly applied to meet the demands for technical installations, leading to the reduction of capacities of these such sections. The capacities of these sectional types have been considered in the American Specification AISI S100-16 using the Direct Strength Method (DSM). This method known as the innovative method for the design of cold-formed steel sections allows predicting the sectional capacities of perforated sections based on elastic bucking loads. Elastic buckling analyses are compulsory for the application of the DSM in the design. The determination of elastic buckling loads of perforated sections is cumbersome with the usage of current buckling analysis software programs. The paper, therefore, presents a simple method for the determination of elastic buckling loads of cold-formed perforated channel sections, especially the paper is aimed to introduce a module software program used for elastic buckling analyses of these such channel sections based on this simple method. This program is convenient for buckling analysis, and it becomes a key program for the application of DSM in the design of cold-formed perforated steel channel sections. This software program is subsequently utilized to investigate the effects of web hole dimensions on the elastic buckling loads of cold-formed steel channel sections with perforations under compression or bending. The investigated results provide fundamental understandings of the buckling behaviors of perforated channel sections due to the effects of the web holes.