Parametric study of stainless steel slender I‐section beams

Abstract

AbstractThe contribution shows a numerical parametric study and experimental research of welded slender stainless steel I‐section beams. Difference in behavior of stainless steel and common carbon steel members is generally known, but design of stainless steel members has been established mainly for hollow sections (CHS, SHS/RHS) as these are the typical stainless steel profiles. Currently, open stainless steel sections are also being used in structures and the design rules for both local buckling of very slender sections as well as lateral torsional buckling reduction factors are based on very limited experimental and numerical research. For this reason new research covering these phenomena was carried out at the Czech Technical University in Prague. A numerical model was used for design of test arrangement, the geometrically and materially nonlinear analysis with imperfection was made in software Abaqus. The experimental program consisted of six stainless steel beam tests being used for a model validation. The tests employed two stainless steel materials (austenitic and ferritic steel), one section slenderness (Class 4 for web and flange) and three beam slenderness. A parametric study based on the validated numerical model was carried out with the main focus on lateral‐torsional buckling of slender Class 3 and Class 4 welded I‐sections. A comparison to the existing design procedures is shown. In limited amount, resistance of Class 4 stainless steel sections in bending was also investigated.