Stability of hot-finished and cold-formed steel hollow section columns: A comparative study

Abstract

A comparative study into the buckling behaviour of hot-finished and cold-formed steel hollow section members subjected to axial compression is presented in this paper. The main differences between hot-finished and cold-formed hollow sections are initially discussed. An experimental programme conducted to investigate the local, global and local-global interactive buckling of hollow section columns is then described. Three S355 normalised hot-finished and three S355/S420 (dual certified) cold-formed profiles, covering circular, square and rectangular hollow sections (CHS, SHS and RHS respectively), were studied. The stress-strain characteristics of the examined materials were obtained through tensile coupon tests. 3D laser scanning was utilised to determine the distribution of geometric imperfections in selected SHS test specimens and a consistent approach to characterise different forms of geometric imperfections from the scan data is put forward. A stub column test was carried out on each cross-section to examine its local buckling behaviour, and a series of long column tests were performed on all test profiles. In total, 21 tensile coupon tests, six stub column tests and 40 long column tests were conducted in this programme. Finite element models were also developed, validated and used for parametric studies to generate supplementary numerical datasets. The obtained test and numerical data, along with the existing experimental results collected from the literature, were used to evaluate the accuracy and reliability of the Eurocode 3 (EC3) stability design provisions for hot-finished and cold-formed hollow section columns; aspects requiring improvements are highlighted to guide future studies.