Experimental assessment of stainless steel hot-rolled equal legs angles in compression

Abstract

Although many mechanical properties of stainless steels are similar to carbon steel, their nonlinear characteristics lead to different design rules that can affect their response to local and flexural buckling. The stainless steel design standard Eurocode 3: Part 1–4 (2006) can, in principle, be used in hot-rolled, welded and cold-formed products, but its provisions are still rather conservative, with a limited application due to the lack of experimental data. One of those areas that require attention and study concerns the behaviour of columns made of hot-rolled stainless steel equal leg angles. This paper describes an experimental campaign made on hot-rolled stainless steel equal-legs angles under axial compression. The adopted cross-sections were: L64 × 64 × 4.8, L76 × 76 × 6.4 and L102 × 102 × 6.4 made of austenitic stainless steel ASTM 304 A276 (1.4301) (with corresponding leg width to thickness ratios, b/t, equal to 13.33, 11.88, 15.94). The longest specimen was 1893 mm, and the shortest one 152 mm. The collapse involved flexural-torsional and flexural buckling modes. These results were subsequently compared with Eurocode 3–1.4 provisions, and to the CSM – Continuous Strength Method and mDSM – Modified Direct Strength Method predictions. In general, the CSM and mDSM performed better than the Eurocode 3 1–4, but unsafe ultimate load predictions could also be observed in some cases.