Abstract
In the past decade, cold-formed steel (CFS) channel sections having circular edge-stiffened web holes have been developed in New Zealand. Such edge-stiffened holes increase the strength of the CFS channel sections, compared to an equivalent section having unstiffened holes, while still allowing full service integration. In the case of web crippling, previous research has found that use of edge-stiffened holes almost results in the same strength of an equivalent channel-section having a plain web. Such circular edge-stiffened web holes can now be extended to elongated edge-stiffened web holes. However, for such elongated holes, no experimental tests have been reported in the literature. In this paper, a numerical investigation was carried out, and non-linear finite element (FE) analyses were used to investigate the web crippling behaviour of CFS channel sections having edge-stiffened web holes under the interior-two-flange (ITF) loading condition. The cases of both flange fastened and flange unfastened were considered. The FE models were validated against test results of sections having circular edge-stiffened web holes; good agreement in terms of the load–displacement curves and deformed shapes was shown. Using the validated FE models, a parametric study was carried out on CFS channel sections having elongated un-stiffened and edge-stiffened web holes, comprising 1,227 finite element analyses (FEA) results. Compared to sections having a plain web, for the case of an elongated opening, without any edge-stiffener, having an aspect ratio of two and three, the average reduction in web crippling strength was 39% and 49%, respectively. However, for an edge-stiffened hole, the reduction in the web crippling strength was reduced to only 2% and 16%, respectively. Finally, the design equations in the form of the web crippling reduction factor (Rp) and the equations based on the direct strength method (DSM) for CFS sections with elongated web holes were proposed.
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