Stability of Thin-Walled Compression Members

A Dissertation submitted to The University of Manchester for the degree of

Master of Science Structural Engineering in the Faculty of Engineering and
Physical Sciences

2014

Ashik Rehmath Parambil

School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering

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 In the name of ALLAH, The Most Merciful and The Most
Beneficent

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF FIGURES.............................................................................................................. 5
LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................. 10
NOTATIONS ..................................................................................................................... 11
ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................... 12
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ................................................................................................. 15
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................... 16
1.1 BACKGROUND...................................................................................................... 16
1.2 PROJECT RATIONALE ......................................................................................... 17
1.3 AIMS, OBJECTIVES AND SPECIFIC ISSUES .................................................... 18
1.4 ORGANISATION OF THE REPORT .................................................................... 19
CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................................ 20
2.1 INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................... 20
2.2 GENERAL BUCKLING MODES .......................................................................... 20
2.2.1 Local Buckling .................................................................................................. 20
2.2.2 Distortional buckling ......................................................................................... 26
2.2.3 Flexural / Flexural-torsional buckling ............................................................... 31
2.3 PREVIOUS RESEARCHES ON THIN-WALLED MEMBER BEHAVIOUR ..... 32
2.4 LITERATURE REVIEW FINDINGS ..................................................................... 39
CHAPTER 3 EXPERIMENTAL METHODS................................................................... 41
3.1 INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................... 41
3.2 DESCRIPTION OF SAMPLES ............................................................................... 41
3.3 TENSILE TEST OF SPECIMENS .......................................................................... 42
3.3.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................... 42
3.3.2 Tensile Test Results .......................................................................................... 43
3.4 BUCKLING TEST................................................................................................... 44
3.4.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................... 44
3.4.2 Test Procedure ................................................................................................... 44
3.4.3 Buckling Results ............................................................................................... 45
3.4.4 Experiment Conclusion ..................................................................................... 58
CHAPTER 4 FINITE ELEMENT MODEL VALIDATION ............................................ 59
4.1 INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................... 59
4.2 CREATING THE FINITE ELEMENT MODEL .................................................... 60
4.3 MATERIAL DEFINITION ..................................................................................... 62

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 4.4 LINEAR BUCKLING ANALYSIS ......................................................................... 63
4.4.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................... 63
4.4.2 Linear Buckling Mode Shapes .......................................................................... 64
4.5 NON-LINEAR POST-BUCKLING ANALYSIS.................................................... 73
4.5.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................... 73
4.5.2 Post Buckling Simulation Results ..................................................................... 73
4.6 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS ...................................................................... 85
CHAPTER 5 PARAMETRIC STUDY ............................................................................. 87
5.1 INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................... 87
5.2 FE MODEL USED IN THE PARAMETRIC STUDY ........................................... 88
5.3 ULTIMATE STRENGTH OF COLD-FORMED STEEL STRUT ......................... 88
5.4 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS .................................................................... 100
CHAPTER 6 DESIGN GUIDELINES OF EC3 .............................................................. 102
6.1 INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................. 102
6.2 CALCULATIONS BASED ON EC3 .................................................................... 102
6.2.1 Local Buckling ................................................................................................ 102
6.2.2 Distortional Buckling ...................................................................................... 105
6.3 COMPARISON OF EC3 RESULTS WITH FE MODEL ..................................... 108
6.4 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION ....................................................................... 117
CHAPTER 7 CONCLUSIONS AND FURTHER WORKS ........................................... 118
7.1 INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................. 118
7.2 SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIVE REMARKS ...................................................... 118
7.3 FUTURE WORKS ................................................................................................. 120
REFERENCES ................................................................................................................. 122
APPENDIX A .................................................................................................................. 127
APPENDIX B .................................................................................................................. 128
APPENDIX C .................................................................................................................. 133
APPENDIX D .................................................................................................................. 137
APPENDIX E................................................................................................................... 139

Final word count: 25947

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2.1 Local buckling modes of typical cross-sections in compression. 21

Figure 2.2 (a) Local buckling of hat-shaped beam (b) Rectangular plate subjected to
compression stress....... 21

Figure 2.3 Buckling coefficient for flat rectangular plates... 22

Figure 2.4 Successive stages of stress distribution in stiffened compression plate.. 24

Figure 2.5 Effective width of compression elements 24

Figure 2.6 Experimental determination of effective width... 25

Figure 2.7 Distortional buckling modes of lipped channel section... 26

Figure 2.8 Finite strip analysis of a lipped channel section.. 27

Figure 2.9 Different types of edge stiffeners 27

Figure 2.10 Distortional buckling model in EN 1993-1-5 (2006).. 28

Figure 2.11 Axially compressed bar on an elastic foundation 29

Figure 2.12 Global buckling failure modes 31

Figure 2.13 Various shapes of channel sections studied. 33

Figure 2.14 Channel section with rear flanges and the analytical model 34

Figure 2.15 Effective width determination. 35

Figure 2.16 Excerpts of AISI (2004) for Direct Strength Methods for Columns... 37

Figure 3.1 Arrangement of paired sample experiments 42

Figure 3.2 Full Tensile Test Results and Simplified Data 43

Figure 3.3 Test Setup of Paired Sample 44

Figure 3.4 SST (1) Buckled Shape... 45

Figure 3.5 SST6) Buckled Shape.. 46

Figure 3.6 SST- buckling experiment data and comparison. 46

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Figure 3.7 SST(5&2) Buckled Shape 47

Figure 3.8 SST(7&3) Buckled Shape 47

Figure 3.9 SST- Paired buckling experiment data.48

Figure 3.10 SSS Buckled Shape.. 49

Figure 3.11 SSS- buckling experiment data 49

Figure 3.12 SLS Buckled Shape.. 50

Figure 3.13 SLS- buckling data experiment 50

Figure 3.14 Paired SLS (5&4) Buckled Shape 51

Figure 3.15 Paired SLS (6&3) Buckled Shape 52

Figure 3.16 SLS Paired- buckling experiment data.52

Figure 3.17 LSS(1) Buckled Shape...... 53

Figure 3.18 LSS(4) Buckled Shape. 53

Figure 3.19 LSS- buckling experiment data 54

Figure 3.20 LST(5) Local Failure .. 55

Figure 3.21 LST(6) Local Failure.... 55

Figure 3.23 LST- buckling data summary... 55

Figure 3.24 LLS- buckling data summary... 56

Figure 3.25 LLS (1) Buckled Shapes... 57

Figure 3.26 LLS (2) Buckled Shapes... 57

Figure 3.27 LLS (4) Buckled Shapes. 57

Figure 3.28 LLS- Failure Load Summary58

Figure 4.1 Thin-walled section with coupling constraint simulated.. 61

Figure 4.2 Engineering Stress Curve for Y490 and Y590 steel. 63

Figure 4.3 EV Solution for SST Sample Model 64

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Figure 4.4 SST- Plot of load factor VS mode number (for L=600mm) 65

Figure 4.5 SST- Plot of load factor VS physical length (mode=1) 65

Figure 4.6 EV Solution for SSS-1 Model. 66

Figure 4.7 EV Solution for SSS-2 Model.. 67

Figure 4.8 EV solutions for SLS model 68

Figure 4.9 SSS- Plot of load factor VS mode number (for L=600mm) 69

Figure 4.10 SSS- Plot of load factor VS physical length (for mode=1). 69

Figure 4.11 EV solutions for LST model 70

Figure 4.12 LST- Plot of load factor VS mode number (for L=1500mm).. 71

Figure 4.13 LST- Plot of load factor VS physical length (for mode=1). 71

Figure 4.14 Experimental and numerical simulation collapse behaviour comparison for
SST individual model... 74

Figure 4.15 Plots of load vs displacement for SST individual model. 74

Figure 4.16 Experimental and numerical simulation collapse behaviour comparison for
SST paired model. 75

Figure 4.17 Plot of load VS displacement for SST Paired model... 76

Figure 4.18 Experimental and numerical simulation collapse behaviour comparison for
SSS model 77

Figure 4.19 Plot of load VS displacement for SSS model... 77

Figure 4.20 Collapse behaviour and collapse load summary for SSS sample. 78

Figure 4.21 Collapse behaviour under loading on web & lips for various modes...79

Figure 4.22 Collapse behaviour under loading on both flanges for various modes 80

Figure 4.23 Collapse behaviour under loading on web & lips for various modes.. 81

Figure 4.24 Sequence of non-linear buckling of LST model.. 82

Figure 4.25 Comparison of collapse behaviour of FE model and experiment sample 83

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Figure 4.26 Collapse behaviour of LST model with base fixity.. 84

Figure 4.27 Plot of load VS displacement for LST FE models... 84

Figure 4.28 LST- buckling data summary... 85

Figure 5.1 Load Summary for different flange widths.. 89

Figure 5.2 Effective Area data for different flange widths 89

Figure 5.3 Elastic buckling load data for different web heights (b=150mm) 90

Figure 5.4 Elastic buckling modes for web lengths 76.2mm and 228.6mm. 90

Figure 5.5 Collapse load summary for different flange widths. 91

Figure 5.6 Effective Area(%) for different flange widths..91

Figure 5.7 Post-buckling behaviour of channel section for different web heights 92

Figure 5.8 Strength reduction factor VS flange-web ratio. 93

Figure 5.9 Collapse load VS thickness for different flange widths... 93

Figure 5.10 Effective area (%) VS thickness for different flange widths 94

Figure 5.11 Effective area (%) VS flange width for the different thickness... 94

Figure 5.12 Sections with varying thickness and flange widths.. 95

Figure 5.13 Buckling failure modes for different thickness 96

Figure 5.14 Load summary for different thickness and web heights... 97

Figure 5.15 Collapse load summary for varying lip length. 97

Figure 5.16 Effective area (%) VS lip length (mm) ... 98

Figure 5.17 Elastic buckling and post-buckling behaviour for sections with different lip
length... 99

Figure 5.18 Strength reduction factor VS lip length 99

Figure 5.19 Effective area (%) VS length... 100

Figure 6.1 Effective width of doubly supported elements 104

Figure 6.2 Effective width of outstand elements.. 105

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Figure 6.3 (a) Distortional buckling model used in EN 1993-1-5 (2006) (b) Edge
stiffener on an elastic foundation of spring stiffness (c) model used to
determine spring stiffness coefficient (d) Effective section of an edge
stiffener 106

Figure 6.4 Buckling curves to calculate reduction factor. 107

Figure 6.5 Collapse load summary for varying flange widths (EC3)... 108

Figure 6.6 Revisited- Collapse load VS flange width (FE model results) 109

Figure 6.7 Effective area (%) VS flange width (EC3).. 109

Figure 6.8 Comparison of effective area between FE model and EC3. 110

Figure 6.9 Effective area (%) VS web height (EC3) 110

Figure 6.10 Comparison of ultimate loads for the section of h=152.4mm. 111

Figure 6.11 Difference of ultimate capacities of EC3 compared to FE model... 111

Figure 6.12 Collapse load summary for varying thickness (EC3).. 112

Figure 6.13 Effective area (%) VS flange width for different thickness (EC3)..112

Figure 6.14 Comparison of effective area between EC3 and FE model. 113

Figure 6.15 Comparison of ultimate loads with varying thickness (h=152.4mm). 113

Figure 6.16 Difference of ultimate capacities of EC3 compared with FE model... 114

Figure 6.17 Collapse load summary for different lip lengths (EC3).. 115

Figure 6.18 Effective area (%) VS lip length (EC3)... 115

Figure 6.19 Difference of ultimate capacities of EC3 compared to FE model (Lip length)
116

Figure 6.20 Difference of ultimate capacities of EC3 compared to FE model (Length) 116

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1 Values of k under uniform compression.. 23

Table 3.1 Nominal Sections of Test Samples... 42

Table 3.2 Simplified Y590 Steel.... 43

Table 3.3 Simplified Y490 Steel.. 43

Table 3.4 SST, Failure Load Summary 47

Table 3.5 SST Paired Failure Load Summary.. 48

Table 3.6 SLS- Failure Load Summary 51

Table 3.7 SLS Paired- Failure Load Summary.53

Table 3.8 LSS- Failure Load Summary 54

Table 3.9 LST- Failure Load Summary56

Table 3.10 LLS- Failure Load Summary58

Table 4.1 Stress-Strain Relationship for Y490 Plastic Model.. 63

Table 4.2 Stress-Strain Relationship for Y590 Plastic Model.. 63

Table 4.3 Elastic buckling load summary 72

Table 5.1 Load summary for various sections. 95

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NOTATIONS

Aeff Effective area calculated based on effective method

b flange width of the lipped channel section
be,beff effective flange width of the lipped channel section
d lip length
DSM Direct Strength Method
EV Eigen Value
EWM Effective Width Method
fy yield strength of the steel
h web height
K elastic stiffness of the edge stiffener
P Critical load of a bar on an elastic foundation
t thickness of the lipped channel section
spring constant of the continuous elastic foundation
modulus of elastic foundation
cr,p critical stress of plate under local buckling
cr,d critical stress for distortional buckling of edge stiffeners
strength reduction factor for the relevant global buckling mode
d thickness reduction factor accounting for distortional buckling of edge stiffeners
slenderness of the column
red reduced slenderness of the column
com,Ed maximum compressive stress on the lipped channel section
effective width coefficient used for local buckling
Stress ratio
plasticity reduction factor

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ABSTRACT
The recent past witnessed an increasing demand of light gauge steel structural systems in
the residential, industrial and commercial buildings especially in America, Europe,
Australia and New Zealand. The high strength-weight ratio of the light gauge (cold-formed)
steel makes it an attractive choice in the construction industry, especially in the landed
properties, to build buildings that are stronger, durable and easier to build, mainly at a time
when concerns of depletion of timber and low productivities associated with reinforced
concrete construction are very serious. Moreover, when compared with the conventional
hot-rolled sections, cold-formed sections have simple and cost-efficient manufacturing
process.

Unlike the hot-rolled sections, cold-formed sections are highly susceptible to three major
kind of instabilities- local, distortional and global (flexural/flexural-torsional) buckling- and
their interactions which makes the design complex. Although, volumes of work has been
done on cold-formed steels, a consistent design method capable of accurately predicting the
collapse behaviour of the steel is yet lacking. A refined understanding of post-buckling
strength and relatively large experimental data is required to reassess the consistency of
existing methods and develop new procedures. Therefore, a research based on numerical
studies was undertaken at The University of Manchester to investigate the ultimate strength
and post-buckling behaviour of the cold-formed steel columns.

Numerical investigation, by means of the FE package ABAQUS, into the behaviour of cold-
formed steel included an extensive parametric study on validated finite element models.
The study involves the determination of exact ultimate load capacity and identification of
post-buckling failure mechanism of 140 simply-supported lipped channel columns with
various section geometries. Finally, these ultimate strength data are compared with the
predictions provided by EC3 recommendations, in order to review the adequacy of the
design rule.

The results of the parametric study which consists of (a) ultimate strength plotted against
different parameters of section geometries (b) effective area estimates of the different
sections and (c) figures enabling a clear visualisation of the linear and non-linear buckling
shapes are described and presented. The comparison of results between FE analysis and
design rules identifies several aspects of the cold-formed behaviour that the design rules
have failed to take into account.

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DECLARATION

I, hereby declare that no portion of the work referred to in the dissertation has been
submitted in support of an application for another degree or qualification of this or any other
university or other institute of learning

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COPYRIGHT STATEMENT

1. The author of this dissertation (including any appendices and/or schedules to this
dissertation) owns certain copyright or related rights in it (the copyright) and the author
has given The University of Manchester certain rights to use such Copyright, including for
administrative purposes.

2. Copies of this dissertation, either in full or in extracts and whether in hard or electronic
copy, may be made only in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
(as amended) and regulations issued under it or, where appropriate, in accordance with
licensing agreements which the University has entered into. This page must form part of
any such copies made.

3. The ownership of certain Copyright, patents, designs, trademarks and other intellectual
property (the Intellectual Property) and any reproductions of copyright works in the
dissertation, for example graphs and tables (Reproductions), which may be described in
this dissertation, may not be owned by the author and may be owned by third parties. Such
Intellectual Property and Reproductions cannot and must not be made available for use
without the prior written permission of the owner(s) of the relevant Intellectual Property
and/or Reproductions.

4. Further information on the conditions under which disclosure, publication and

commercialisation of this dissertation, the Copyright and any Intellectual Property and/or
Reproductions described in it may take place is available in the Universitys Library
regulations.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

All praise is due to the Lord Almighty, ALLAH, The Most Merciful and The Most
Beneficent. I express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor Dr. Partha Mandal for his kind
support and constructive suggestions throughout the dissertation, and Mr. Tahir for his
valuable guidance which helped me in completing the dissertation.

The support of my family and friends has been invaluable. Finally, I would like to thank the
School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering for instilling zeal and vigour
towards learning.

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CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND

Recently, with the development of light gauge steel structural systems, there has been an
increasing demand for the economical light gauge frame systems especially for the landed
properties, in various parts of the world such as America, Europe, Australia and New
Zealand. Traditionally, timber or the structural masonry constructions were the preferred
form of construction in the landed properties and the steel was considered to be
uneconomical.

The manufacture of the light gauge steel employs the cold-work of forming by employing
any of the three methods- Roll forming, press break operation and bending break operation.
Roll forming technique enable to produce large quantities from a single section while press
break operation is better employed in producing small quantities from various section.
However, roll forming method of manufacture is more economical than the press brake
method. This process of cold-forming enables steels of high strength to weight ratio to be
produced. In order to prevent the corrosive actions the sheet surface is coated with a zinc
alloy. This makes the light gauge steel an attractive choice, especially in landed properties,
to build buildings that are stronger, durable and easier to build, mainly at a time when
concerns of depletion of timber and low productivities associated with reinforced concrete
construction are very serious.

The rapidly increasing usage of the light gauge steel in the low-rise construction has invited
research into their applications and understanding of their structural behaviour. Light gauge
steels sections are thin-walled, slender open section in which the centroid of the cross-
section and shear centre does not coincide with each other. Due to this, light gauge steel
sustains 3 major buckling instabilities- local, distortional and global (flexural/ flexural-
torsional) buckling.

The project will investigate the stability of thin-walled axially compressed columns. The
influence of the section geometries in resisting the pronounced buckling instabilities is of
particular concern in the design of the cold-formed steel columns. In particular, the
consistency and reliability of the EN 1993-1-5 (2006) in predicting the ultimate capacity of
the member is assessed in this research.

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1.2 PROJECT RATIONALE

Recent researches have raised concern over the consistency and reliability of the existing
codes of practice with regard to the design of cold-formed steel members. Moreover,
industry practices show huge discrepancies between the ultimate capacity values calculated
between different codes of practice. For example, Napper (2013) noticed a discrepancy of
45% when the ultimate capacity calculation were compared between BS 5950-5 and BS EN
1993, although the discrepancy varied with different section profiles. In addition, the
recommendations provided in the Eurocode 3 (Part 1-3) accounts for the global, distortional
and local buckling mainly based on the works of Thomasson (1978) and Hoglund (1980)
while the North-American and Australian/New Zealander specifications handle the
global/distortional interactions based on the experimental works carried out by Desmond et
al. (1981) (Dinis and Camotim, 2011). But none of the above works that forms the basis of
the aforementioned specifications explicitly addresses the mechanics of distortional-global
buckling interaction and, therefore, tends to provide conservative predictions.

Schafer (2010) pointed out that most of the early researches were confined in the
characterization of local buckling and distortional buckling was almost ignored. Because of
this, researches characterising distortional buckling and interaction of different buckling
modes are relatively new and, unfortunately, these stability problems are yet to be fully
understood. Moreover, Rossi et al. (2010) observed that European recommendations were
more conservative than Australian/New Zealander specifications and latter were much
closer to the experiment results in determining the post-buckling capacity.

For a safe and economic design of buildings using the light gauge frame system the
consistency and reliability of the existing codes of practice must be fully understood before
they are implemented in the industry. The lack of knowledge and understanding of the
behaviour of cold-formed steel members has raised concerns over the existing codes of
practice.

It is unacceptable for the design codes to fail in fully understanding and representing the
behaviour of cold-formed steel members. Also, the provisions of EN 1993-1-5 (2006) being
too conservative demonstrates the serious problems in the way in which the provisions deals
with the instabilities of cold-formed steel members. The research on the topic Stability of
thin-walled compression members is, therefore, important to the construction industry
worldwide.

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1.3 AIMS, OBJECTIVES AND SPECIFIC ISSUES

The aim of this work is twofold: (i) to demonstrate and discuss a set of numerical results
pertaining to (a) the post-buckling behaviour (both elastic and elastic-plastic) and (b)
ultimate capacity of the cold-formed steel lipped channel simply supported at its ends; (ii)
to demonstrate the consistency and reliability of the recommendations given by EN 1993-
1-5 (2006). In this project, discussions and demonstration of the post-buckling behaviour
and ultimate capacity is only made and derivation of any alternative formulations to the
code provisions is not the intent of the project.

In order to achieve the aforementioned aims, the following objectives are set out:

Understand the basic principles underlying the recommendations provided in EN

1993-1-5 (2006) and to acquaint with the various recommendations in the standard
to account for the pronounced instabilities.
Develop numerical models using finite elements and validate those models for
ultimate capacity and post-buckling mechanism with an experiment.
Understand the influence of section geometries on both the failure mechanism and
ultimate capacity by undertaking the parametric study on the validated numerical
models.
Compare the numerical results from the parametric study with the results calculated
using Eurocode 3 (Part 1-3) recommendations.

Numerical results will be yielded by finite element analysis carried out in the code
ABAQUS 6.12. MS-Excel have been used to create spreadsheets for the calculation of the
ultimate capacities based on the EN 1993-1-3 (2006) recommendations. In order to account
for the iteration involved in the calculation, Visual Basic (VB) macros were incorporated
into the Excel spreadsheet. Also, to cater the hand calculations relating to the fairly large
amount of FE models, VB macros were developed that will automatically intake the
required parameters and generate the ultimate capacity table for the concerned parameter.

Specific issue that was related to the project was learning the FE modelling of cold-formed
steel members which included both linear and non-linear analysis of the member. Moreover,
the student was also required to learn certain principles specific to Theory of Plates in
order to better understand the principles underlying the Eurocode 3 recommendations and,
therefore, room to errors are inevitable in the dissertation. The dissertation was also very
time constrained that a period of 3 months was the continuance of the thesis.

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1.4 ORGANISATION OF THE REPORT

The outline of the report is as follows:

Chapter 1 presents the general introduction of the light gauge structural system and its
failure behaviour. Further, it defines the aims and objectives of the whole
research explaining the importance of the research in the current world.

Chapter 2 presents the review of various literature of significance to the current research.
It describes the development of the formulations recommended in the Eurocode
3 and various other codes for the cold-formed steel design, various experimental
and numerical investigations that were carried out to study the different
buckling phenomena of the cold-formed steel member.

Chapter 3 describes the procedure and results of the experiment conducted by Green (2014)
which forms the basis for the numerical model validation. Pictures to illustrate
the post-buckling mechanism of different samples are also presented.

Chapter 4 presents the details of the numerical investigation and validation of the finite
element model. Comparison of the results with the experiment are presented.

Chapter 5 presents the detailed parametric study conducted on the validated models and
discussions on the post-buckling behaviour of the models

Chapter 6 presents the results obtained from the calculation based on the EN 1993-1-5
(2006) recommendations. The results of the hand calculations are compared and
presented.

Chapter 7 presents the important findings of the research and recommendations for future
works in the area.

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CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 INTRODUCTION

Compared to the hot-rolled steel sections, cold-formed steel sections are generally slender,
thin-walled open sections which makes them highly prone to 3 predominant instability
phenomena- local, distortional and global (flexural or flexural-torsional buckling).
Furthermore, interactions of the pronounced failure modes can also occur, due to material
non-linearity, residual stresses, geometric imperfections etc., whereby local-distortional
buckling, interaction of local and global buckling or interactions of distortional and global
buckling are possible. The understanding of the buckling and post-buckling mechanics has
been the subject of researchers over the years. A considerable volume of work on the
different aspects surrounding the behaviour of cold-formed steel members has been done
and today our knowledge is at a fairly sophisticated level.

This chapter reviews the available literature in the areas of analytical formulation, numerical
investigation, experimental investigation and design methods pertaining to the buckling and
post-buckling behaviour of cold-formed steel members. Also, relevant theories for the
understanding of the different buckling phenomena will be discussed to properly understand
and appreciate the design approaches of current available codes of practice especially EN
1993-1-5 (2006).

2.2 GENERAL BUCKLING MODES

2.2.1 Local Buckling

The slender and thin-walled individual elements of a cold-formed steel structural member
may buckle locally at a stress level lower than the yield strength of the steel when they are
subjected to compression by flexural bending, axial compression, shear or bearing (Yu,
2000). Local buckling can be defined as the mode which involves plate-like deformation
alone, without the translation of the intersecting lines of the adjacent plate elements as
shown in the Figure 2.1 (Kulatunga and Macdonald, 2013). The effect of local buckling on
the column strength is influenced by: the slenderness ratio of the column, the shape of the
cross-section, the influence of the cold-work, the type of steel used and its mechanical
properties, the type of governing overall column buckling (flexural or flexural-torsional),
effect of imperfection, effect of welding, interaction between plane components, effect of
perforations, effect of residual stress etc. (Kulatunga and Macdonald, 2013).

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 Figure 2.1: Local buckling modes of typical cross-sections in compression
(Kulatunga & Macdonald, 2013)

2.2.1.1. Elastic Local Buckling Stress

Under uniform compression, the cold-formed steel open sections may develop local
buckling as shown in Figure 2.2(a). The length of the buckles are generally small deflections
as of the order of cross-sectional dimensions. Krauthammer and Ventsel (2001) describes
the theories related to plate buckling by many researchers. The elastic critical stress of a
rectangular simply supported plate subjected to uniform compression, as shown in Figure
2.2 (b) can be determined by solving Bryans differential equation based on small deflection
theory as follows:

Figure 2.2: (a) Local buckling of hat-shaped beam (b) Rectangular plate subjected to
compression stress (Yu, 2000)

If m and n are the numbers of the half sine waves in the x and y direction respectively, for
the boundary conditions x = 0, a and y = 0, w (a and w are the length and width of the plate
respectively), the out-of plane deflection of the buckled plate may be represented by a
double trignometric series:

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Solving Eq. (2.1) by using Eq. (2.2) gives,

Either Amn = 0 or the quanitity in the square braces must be zero. But the former condition
means that no buckling is occuring. Hence,

On solving the above equation, the elastic critical buckling stress is as follows:

Putting the minimum vale n = 1 which means only one half sine wave along the y direction,
and substituting the felexural rigidity of plate,

where

Figure 2.3: Buckling coefficient for flat rectangular plates (Yu, 2000)

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In structural engineering, the long plate having a relatively large a / w ratio often represents
the case of individual elements of the sections generally used as cold-formed steel members.
An aspect ratio (a / w) which exceeds about 4, a value of k = 4 can be used in the calculation
of elastic buckling stress for a plate simply supported along four edges and subjected to
uniform compression in one direction (see Figure 2.3). In fact, the buckling coeffienct (k)
is influenced by supported edges and loading conditions (axial compression, bending or
shear). Table 2.1 shows the values of k for a long rectangular plate subjected to uniform but
under different boundary conditions.

Table 2.1: Values of k under uniform compression

2.2.1.2. Post-buckling Strength and Concept of Effective Width

Unlike one dimensional structural members such as columns, the two dimensional stiffened
compression plate elements will not fail catastrophically at the buckling stress (Yu, 2000).
In fact, additional loads beyond the initial buckling can be taken by the plate by means of
redistribution of the stress. This is because the transverse fibres of the plates tend to go into
tension (acting as tie rods) allowing for increased load capacity. This phenomenon is known
as post-buckling strength.

For a uniformly stressed rectangular plate, the stress distribution is uniform prior to elastic
buckling (see Figure 2.4(a)). After the buckling, the stress moves away from the central
unconstrained portion of the plate to the edge portion of the plate, resulting in a non-uniform
stress distribution (see Figure 2.4(b)). The redistribution of the stress continues until the
stress at the extreme edge reaches the yield stress of the plate (see Figure 2.4(c)).

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 (a) (b) (c)
Figure 2.4: Successive stages of stress distribution in stiffened compression plate

The post-buckling analysis can be done using large deflection theory of plates. Yu (2000)
gives the differential equation developed by Von Karman for the large deflection buckling
of plate:

But the above equation is too complex to be utilized in the practical design and, for this
reason, Von Karman et al., in 1932, introduced the concept of effective width. In this
approach, when the ultimate load is reached, the actual stress distribution may be replaced
by assuming that total load is carried by two fictitious strip along the supporting edges of a
stiffened element or one fictitious strip along the supporting edge of an unstiffened element
as shown in Figure 2.5 (Young, n.d.).

(a) Stiffened Element (b) Unstiffened Element

Figure 2.5: Effective width of compression elements (Young, n.d)

24 | P a g e
Theoretical value of effective width be can be found out by considering it as representing
the particular width of the plate which just buckles when the compressive stress reaches the
yield stress of the steel (Yu, 2000). Therefore, for a stiffened long plate, effective width can
be determined by subtituting k = 4, w = be, fcr = Fy and then solving for be which will give:

where and

However, the effective width formula derived by Von Karman et al. was limited to perfect
plates in which the physical quantitues such as geometric imperfection and residual stresses,
of a real plate, were not considered. Based on the extensive investigation done by Winter
on folded thin-plate sheets he proposed a modification to the effective width formula
(Young, n.d.). He found that a straight line relationship exists between / (/) and
C, as shown in Figure 2.6 (Yu, 2000). C was re-written as:

Figure 2.6: Experimental determination of effective width (Yu, 2000)

Yu (2000) gives a modified equation to the above relation for determining C, which was
proposed by Winter in 1968.

C=

Substituting the value of C in Eq. 2.5 and rearranging the equation will give

25 | P a g e
where f* is the design stress and Pcr is the elastic buckling critical stress of a plate. This is
known as the Winter effective width formula and is used by many codes of practice such
as EN 1993-1-3:2006 and AS/NZS 4600 (SA, 1996). The formula can be simplified to the
following expression

where is the slenderness ratio given by,

where K is the plate buckling coefficient. The equations have been modified to include non-
uniform compression and also unstiffened plate element (see Section 6.2.1.2) in EN 1993-
1-5 (2006).

2.2.2 Distortional buckling

Distortional buckling, also known as stiffener buckling or local-torsional bucklingis

relatively a less researched buckling mode. It is characterized by the rotation of the flange
at the flange/web junction in members with edge stiffened elements, as shown in Figure
2.7, and the displacement of the intermediate stiffeners normal to the plane of the element
(flange) in members with intermediate stiffened elements (Ranawaka, 2006).

Figure 2.7: Distortional buckling modes of lipped channel section (Kulatunga &
Macdonald, 2013)

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 Figure 2.8: Finite strip analysis of a lipped channel section (Schafer, 2002)

FSM analysis using CUFSM revealed that the distortional buckling occurs at an
intermediate half wavelength between local buckling and global buckling (see Figure 2.8).
The distortional buckling, if allowed to occur, causes failure more quickly. Nevertheless,
distortional buckling can be controlled if members are designed so that local buckling
stresses are significantly lower than the distortional buckling stresses. Members with
slender web, compared to flanges (in this case flanges should be narrow), happens to buckle
locally first while wider flanges buckle distortionally (Ranawaka, 2006).

2.2.2.1 Elastic distortional buckling Stress

The edge stiffener provided along the longitudinal edge of the compression flange provides
a continuous support to the flange plate element. The most common form of an edge is
providing a simple lip and there are also other types of providing edge stiffeners, as shown
in Figure 2.9.

Figure 2.9: Different types of edge stiffeners (Yu, 2000)

A number of theoretical and experimental investigations conducted over the past few years
have resulted in a number of methods for determining the elastic distortional buckling stress
of singly-symmetric cross-sections (Kesti and Davies, 1999). Analytical methods for
closed-form prediction in the distortional mode include Desmond et al (1981), Lau and

27 | P a g e
Hancock (1987), which is based on the flexural-torsional buckling of a flange including
stiffener and EC3 method, which is based on the flexural buckling of a stiffener. AISI
specifications employ the first method and the second one is employed by AS/NZS 4600
(Kesti and Davies, 1999).

In EN 1993-1-5 (2006) the design of compression elements with either edge or intermediate
stiffeners assumes that stiffener behaves as a long compression member on an elastic
foundation, with a spring stiffness that depends on the boundary conditions and flexural
stiffness of the adjacent plane elements of the cross-section (Kesti and Davies, 1999). The
spring stiffness may be determined by applying a unit load at the centroid of the edge
stiffener, as shown in Figure 2.10. Rotational stiffness C represents the bending stiffness
of the web part.

Figure 2.10: Distortional buckling model in EN 1993-1-5 (2006) (Kesti and Davies,
1999)

The equations for spring stiffness, K, are explained in section 6.2.2. Timoshenko and Gere
(1961) describes the method of calculation of the critical load for a bar on an elastic
foundation. Elastic foundation can be considered as equally spaced elastic supports of equal
rigidity (as shown in Figure 2.11). Then the rigidity of the elastic medium, in terms of spring
constant () of the individual supports and spacing (a) between the individual supports, can
be expressed as

where is called the modulus of the foundation and it represents the reaction of the
foundation per unit length of the bar at unit deflection.

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Figure 2.11: Axially compressed bar on an elastic foundation (Timoshenko and Gere,
1961)
The general expression of deflection curve of a bar can be expressed as the following series:

The strain energy of the bending of a bar (or beam) is given by

The lateral reaction on an element dx of the bar is ydx and the corresponding strain energy
is (y2/2) dx. Then the total strain energy of the deformation of elastic medium is

Substituting the trignometric series expression of y,

The deflection in the direction of compressive force P is given by

and corresponding strain energy can be expressed as

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Using the energy method, it can obtained that,

On rearraning, critical load P can be determined as

Assuming the deflection curve of the bar is a simple sine curve ( )

The critical load is then estimated to be

where m is an integer which represents the number of sine waves in which the bar
subdivides at buckling and the properties of the beam and of the foundation.

Kesti and Davies (1999) gives an expression for the critical elastic stress for the edge
stiffener obtained by dividing the critical load,P, with the cross-sectional area of the edge
stiffener.

where = l/m, = K , Is and As are the second moment of area and area of the edge stiffener
respectively. By minimising the critical stress in the above equation, one can obtain the
preferred half wavelength of buckling for a long strut,

30 | P a g e
Substituting Eq. 2.8 in Eq. 2.7 gives,

Section 6.2.2 describes the expression and procedure by which EN 1993-1-5 (2006)
accounts for the post-buckling reserve after the distortional buckling mode.

2.2.3 Flexural / Flexural-torsional buckling

A section which is closed shape, doubly symmetric, point symmetric or of a cylindrical

shape, when axially loaded, will generally faily by flexural buckling. However, an axially
loaded open section, since the shear centre does not coincide with the centroid of the section,
buckles in the flexural-torsional mode in which case bending and twisting occurs
simultaneously as shown in Figure 2.12.

(a) Flexural buckling (b) Flexural-torsional buckling

Figure 2.12: Global buckling failure modes

Many codes provide different design specifications to take into account both the flexural
and flexural-torsional buckling of thin-walled compression members. EN 1993-1-5 (2006)
recommends the following equation for calculating the buckling resistance,

where is the reduction factor for the relevant buckling mode (flexural/ flexural-torsional
buckling), Aeff is the effective cross-section,fy is the yield strength and M1 is the partial

safety for resistance of members. Section 6.2.2 gives the recommendations for . Aeff is the
reduced area due to local and distrotional buckling. This reduced area must be used in the

31 | P a g e
calculation of for thin-walled sections. In addition, the calculation for the global buckling
effects for the thin-walled sections are similar to hot-rolled heavy sections except that the
reduction in area due to both local and distortional buckling must be included instead of the
overall area.

2.3 PREVIOUS RESEARCHES ON THIN-WALLED MEMBER BEHAVIOUR

The researches in the field of behaviour of thin-walled steel members in its early period
found itself mainly confined to the studies of local buckling phenomenon. The researches
to study distortional buckling are relatively new, probably dates back to the recent decades.

Yu (2000) gives a correlation made by Winter (1949) between the equation of effective
width formula explained in section 2.2.1.2 and the results of tests conducted by Sechler and
Winter. The equation was found to be well correlated with those stiffened compression
element with no rotaional restraints along both the longitudinal edges. Empirical equations
for determining the effective widths of stiffened elements are generalised for different
rotational edge restraints in the Canadian Standard (1994) as shown below:

Where k is the local buckling coeffient to account for the effects of rotational edge restraint.
Johnson (1966) proposed to replace E with E in the Eq. 2.9 to seed the effects of inelastic
buckling, where is a plasticity reduction factor.

Hu et al (1946) and Abdel Sayed (1969) made extensive research into the influence of
intial imperfection on the effective width calculation. It was found that an imperfect plate
possessed lesser capacity than that without any imperfections. The smaller the imperfection
the higher was the capacity.

Bulson (1970) demonstrated, analytically, the influence of non-uniform edge loading on

the buckling coefficient for the prediction of the critical stress on a simply supported
rectangulat plate using the energy method, which gave an insight into the behaviour of webs
of thin-walled sections under bending. However, it was found cumbersome to derive an
exact solution for the post-buckling strength of plate assemblies because of the influence of
interaction between flange and web components apart form web slenderness ratio, the
aspect ratio and the ratio of bending stresses and, therefore, the codes of practice suggested

32 | P a g e
empirical relations. Lot of researches such as Johnson (1976), He and Pekoz (1981), Van
Neste (1983) etc contributed to the development of effective web depth formulas.

Recently, many experiments were carried out to study the behaviour of cold-formed steel,
especially the distortional buckling mode and interaction of local/global buckling, by
Young and Rasmussen (1998) (mostly in understanding local/global interaction), Lau and
Hancock (1987), Kwon and Hancock (1992a and b), Hancock (1998), Rhodes (1991) and
Yu (2000). The research studied channel sections for a variety of edge and intermediated
stiffeners- lipped channels, rack column uprights, rack column upright with additional
outward edge stiffeners, hats, lipped channel with web stiffeners etc.

Figure 2.13: Various shapes of channel sections studied (Ranawaka, 2006)

Hancock (1985) studied the buckling behaviour of a cold-formed lipped channel section
with sloping lip stiffeners upon including rear flanges. For the sections of thin plate,
distortional mode of failure was observed at a lower load than those for the local, flexural
or flexural-torsional buckling, especially the extra rear flanges are added to the lip stiffeners.
A series of design charts have been proposed to compute distortional buckling coefficients
for profiles of simple lipped channels, rack column upright with rear flanges and rack
column upright with rear flanges with additional lip stiffeners, which can be used to
determine the elastic critical stress for plate buckling.

Lau and Hancock (1987) derived analytical expressions for the distortional buckling
elastic stresses based on the flexural-torsional buckling theory of an undistorted long strut
on an elastic foundation developed by Timoshenko and Gere (1961) and Vlasov (1961).
An approximate model, as shown in Figure 2.14, was adopted to develop the analytical
formulation. It assumes that the flange-lip combination rotates about the flange-web
junction undistorted and the web to be consisting of lateral and rotational restraints.

33 | P a g e
 Figure 2.14: Channel section with rear flanges and the analytical model (Lau and
Hancock, 1987)

Kwon and Hancock (1992) conducted tests on sections that provided substantial post-
buckling strength reserve and also ensured occurrence of local-buckling simultaneously in
contrast to the sections, having distortional buckling stress and yield strength of steel
approximately equal, used by Lau and Hancock (1988). They showed that the effective
design approach in AISI (1986) was unconservative and, came up with an extension to Lau
and Hancock (1988) and also proposed modification to the Winters plate strength curve
used in the AISI (1986). Winters formula for distortional buckling was modified by raising
the power of (d / fy) from 0.5 to 0.6 and changing its coefficent from 0.22 to 0.25, as shown
below:

where and de = elastic distortional buckling stress

Schafer and Pekoz (1999) extended the studies into the effects of distortional buckling
mode on the post-buckling capacity of laterally braced flexural members with edge stiffened
flanges. Interestingly, the numerical investigation (using ABAQUS) into the member found
that the distortional mode may control failure even when it occurs at a higher critical stress
than the local buckling mode. An alternative closed-form prediction to the distortional
34 | P a g e
mode, along with an alternative design procedure integrating the effects of distortional
mode on the post-buckling capacity, was proposed. A new approach to determine the
effective width of stiffened elements under a stress gradient (webs) is proposed by ensuring
that both force and moment balance occurs between the approximated non-linear stress and
the effective section (see Figure 2.15).

Figure 2.15: Effective width determination (Schafer and Pekoz, 1999)

Young and Rasmussen (1998) determined experimental ultimate loads and failure modes
for plain and lipped channels tested between fixed ends and pinned ends which
demonstrated that local buckling has fundamentally different effect on the fixed ended and
pinned ended thin-walled steel columns. Experimentally, they demonstrated that the local
buckling does not induce overall bending in the case of fixed ended columns unlike the
pinned ended ones. Rhodes and Harvey (1977) suggested that, in pinned ended struts, the
shift of effective centroid creates eccentricity which, in turn, develops the overall bending.
Analytically, Rasmussen and Hancock (1993) established that for a fixed ended columns,
the shift of effective centroid is balanced by the corresponding shift of applied load and,
35 | P a g e
thus, negating the overall bending and, thereby, improving the capacity. Young and
Rasmussen (1998) found that the capacities calculated from AISI and Australian/New
Zealand specifications differed from the test results.

Loughlan and Yidris (2010) employed finite element strategies to study the mechanics of
post-local buckling and its interaction with overall bending in thin-walled I sections with
their ends fixed. They examined that the effects of local buckling significantly reduced the
Euler buckling capacity and furthermore, when the local buckling stress was approximately
equal to material yielding, the geometrical imperfections resulted, in fact, in a lower post-
buckling capacity than the elastic load capacity. The finite element model study of
Loughlan et al. (2012) on the failure of thin-walled lipped channel columns due to the
local/global interactions and material non-linearity highlighted that the local buckling
effectively interacts with global flexural buckling and distortional buckling culminating into
post-buckling behaviour of reduced ultimate capacities. Loughlan et al. (2012) examined
that an immediate interaction occurs between local buckling and global flexural buckling
while, sufficient post-local buckling reserve was observed before local-distortional
interactions.

Schafer (2000) explained the new concept of cold-formed steel member design called the
Direct Strength Method. The method has been included as Appendix 1 to the AISI (2004)
recommendations of cold-formed steel design. The Direct Strength Methodn instead of
using the effective width approach, utilises the member elastic buckling solutions based on
gross properties to predict and estimate the cross-section resistance in three key limit states:
global buckling, local buckling (including interaction with global buckling), and
distortional buckling (Schafer, 2006). Straightforward equations are available to determine
the ultimate capacity (as shown in Figure 2.16). Schafer (2008) briefed the principle
underlying the method as if an engineer determines all of the elastic instabilities for the
gross section (i.e., local, distortional, and global buckling) and the load (or moment) that
causes the section to yield, then the strength can be directly determined. The method is yet
to fully develop to include shear provisions, web crippling provisions, provisions for
members with holes and provisions for strength increase due to cold-work of forming.

36 | P a g e
 Figure 2.16: Excerpts of AISI (2004) for Direct Strength Methods for Columns
(Schafer, 2006)

Lecce (2006) and Lecce and Rasmussen (2006) investigated the distortional buckling
mode of lipped channel sections made of austenitic and ferritic stainless steels. They
proposed formulas for distortional buckling of stainless steel profiles using DSM approach
based on tests carried out on simple lipped channels and lipped channels with intermediate
stiffeners, which were made up of three different alloys.

Ferritic Stainless Steel

37 | P a g e
 Austenitic Stainless Steel

where , and

Lecces strength curves were derived based on 500 numerical results for sufficiently long
strut because distortional buckling strength is length dependent for short length fixed ended
sections. And it was found that the Leccess formulations provided lower bounds to the
experimental prediction of strength for the fixed ended sections.

Becque et al. (2008) studied the interaction of local and global flexural buckling failure
modes by carrying out tests on simply supported thin-walled lipped channel section and I
section columns of different slenderness (and also made of three different alloys as in Lecce
and Rasmussen (2006)). Strength curves, using DSM approach, were formulated, based on
200 finite element strengths, to predict the ultimate strength due to combined local and
overall flexure buckling failure modes.

where and

Direct strength equations have also been derived to determine Nce using the tangent modulus
approach and Eurocode 3 Part 1-4 (Becque et al., 2008).

Rossi et al. (2010) investigated the post-buckling failure mechanism of stainless steel lipped
channel sections of different lengths (ranging from 400mm to 3200mm) by axially
compressing between two fixed ends. Although, the cross-section dimensions were
designed in such a way that the observed failure mode was a culmination of distortional and
flexural-torsional buckling, the test results revealed a distortional mode of failure short
length sections and a flexural-torsional mode for longer columns. It was also concluded that
neither the European recommendation nor Australian/NewZealand recommendations was
able to accurately predict the ultimate capacity for both distortional mode and flexural-
torsional mode of failure. However, in both the cases, European recommendations resulted
in a conservative results while the Australian design curve gave values much closer to the

38 | P a g e
experiment results. To account for the distortional/flexural buckling interactions Rossi et al
(2010) suggested the following modifications to Lesses strength curve:

Ferritic Stainless Steel:

Austenitic Stainless Steel:

where

The member (flexural-torsional buckling) design stress fn,Et based on the Australian implicit
design strength method, which requires an iterative procedure, is used to compute the
distortional buckling slenderness d.

2.4 LITERATURE REVIEW FINDINGS

The study and research into different literatures have enabled to understand the background
surrounding the formulations of the three different buckling modes- local, distortional and
global buckling- used in the different codes of practice. Although, a huge volume of works
have been done to understand the buckling behaviours, the knowledge and understanding
to develop a consistent design method is yet lacking, expecially in understanding
distortional buckling or interactions of the different modes with each other.

Lecce and Rasmussen (2006) formulated by the strength equations failed to provide
accurate predictions at shorter lengths when cold-formed stainless steel profiles are
compressed between fixed ends. The effect of this member length on the distortional
buckling, when compressed between fixed ends, are yet to be understood.

Schafer (2002) suggested the need for a more refined undestanding of the local and
distortional buckling mode of prediction and argued that the current design codes lacks
consistency and, hence, must be reassessed. He also argued that the early researches were
confined to characterizing local buckling and its contribution to the strength degradation
and, as a result, distortional buckling was often restricted in research.

Clearly, a deeper understanding into the buckling failure modes must be made. Especially,
the researches into the understanding of distortional buckling and interactions between

39 | P a g e
different buckling modes must be well promoted. In the current research, the consistency
of the existing design codes in predicting the exact behaviour is studied and also possible
suggestions to the recommendations are made.

40 | P a g e
CHAPTER 3 EXPERIMENTAL METHODS

3.1 INTRODUCTION

The experiment, presented and described in this section, was conducted by Green (2014) at
The University of Manchester to study the elastic and post-buckling behaviour of short and
medium columns for thin gauge lipped channel sections. Firstly the experiment investigated
the discrepancies between the two major design code standards- BS 5950-5 and EC3- when
calculating the axial capacity of thin-walled cold formed open sections. Secondly, the
experiment studied the efficiencies of different profile sizes with the view to further
investigation into geometrical ratios of highest efficiencies. However, Green (2014)
concentrated his works only on the local buckling failure mode and, in particular, did not
provide any insight into the geometrical ratios that is most efficient.

This chapter will summarise the test set up, procedures and methods of the experiment
conducted by Green (2014). Also a summary of the results obtained from the buckling tests
of 20 samples is also detailed in the chapter.

3.2 DESCRIPTION OF SAMPLES

Test samples of 1.2mm and 1.6mm thickness at 0.6m and 1.5m lengths for two different
profiles of 100mm and 150mm web lengths were used for the experiment. Test specimens
included both paired and individual samples. Table 3.1 shows the nominal sections that
were tested.

The samples were referenced by the following short hand notation

To ensure local buckling and to avoid torsional buckling resulting from the imperfect end
conditions or geometry paired samples were connected at mid-height as shown in Figure
3.1. For the samples that were paired, 3mm holes were marked and drilled at mid-height of
each flange measure at 25mm from the lip. The 110x25x1mm mild steel plates had 3mm

41 | P a g e
holes punched in at centre width and 25mm from each end. The plates were then bolted
onto the pair of channels with M3 steel bolts and tightened with a spanner.

Table 3.1: Nominal Sections of Test Samples (Green, 2014)

Figure 3.1: Arrangement of paired sample experiments (Green, 2014)

3.3 TENSILE TEST OF SPECIMENS

3.3.1 Introduction

Green (2014) conducted tensile tests on the test specimens to verify the material properties
of the samples that were supplied. Two coupons (P1A and P1B) were cut from one 150mm
web channel and two cut from one 100mm web channel (P2A and P2B), totalling 4 test
samples.

42 | P a g e
3.3.2 Tensile Test Results

The test revealed discrepancies with regard to the grade of steel. The expected grade of steel
was S460 while the test revealed that the two different grades of steel have been used in the
manufacture of the sections, and are referred to by Y490 and Y590 corresponding to the
approximate lower yield stresses.

For the purpose of abaqus modelling, a simplified stress-strain curve of the weaker sample
has been plotted and shall be used to create models which try to resemble real experimental
work. A simplified stress-strain plot data is given in Table 3.2 and Table 3.3.

P1A and P1B

Stress P2A and P2B
Strain (Mpa) Strain Stress (Mpa)
0 0 0 0
0.0031 497
0.0025 440
0.004 546
0.0045 491
0.0058 588
0.0093 494
0.025 590
0.062 645 0.0558 577
0.11 658 0.11 609
0.156 650 0.198 606
0.164 605 0.21 577
0.168 500 0.212 500

Table 3.2: Simplified Y590 Steel Table 3.3: Simplified Y490 Steel

Figure 3.2: Full Tensile Test Results and Simplified Data (Green, 2014)

43 | P a g e
3.4 BUCKLING TEST

3.4.1 Introduction

This section will summarise the test procedures adopted for the buckling test of the lipped
channel struts by Daniel Green (2014). A detailed summary of the buckling test results is
also drawn to gain an abstract of the conclusions of the experiment. The section details of
the test samples are set out in Appendix A- Experimental Sample.

3.4.2 Test Procedure

Samples were carefully positioned such that the centroid coincided with the centre of the
loading cell to cause no moment.

Testing was conducted to obtain maximum load and observe post-buckling failure. The tests
were carried out under vertical displacement control, at 0.5mm/min, chosen as a
compromise between test time and good progression of loading and most samples were
loaded to approx. 4mm vertical displacement before unloading proceeded.

The loading cell circular plate was approx. 158mm diameter, as such, 150mm web paired
channels required extra plates at each end to ensure even distribution of load over the entire
section see Figure 5.3. The weight of top plate (25.4kg) is neglected from results as it is
less than 0.5% of the total load, and less than one fifth of the tolerance on load measurement.

Figure 3.3: Test Setup of Paired Sample (Green, 2014)

44 | P a g e
3.4.3 Buckling Results

The mode of failure and failure load are the two important factors that were particularly
looked at in the experiment. The photographs of the buckled sample and the load measured
from the experiment forms the basis of this section. Daniel Green (2014) describes the
experimental observation in detail.

3.4.3.1 SST Results

Individual Experiment

Figure 3.4 shows the post buckled shape of sample 1 with a distortional type failure, where
the flanges deform laterally however, the mode of failure is actually local buckling
confirmed by observations in the elastic region less than 60kN and the crimping of the web
and flange elements at a single location. The cause for such flange distortion is expected to
be non-uniform loading of the section caused by the flange elements having larger
longitudinal length that the web i.e. the ends were not cut square to the section. For the
test on SST (1) there were no obvious signs to report until 70kN when local buckling
occurred towards the top of the member.

Figure 3.4: SST (1) Buckled Shape (Green, 2014)

45 | P a g e
Figure 3.5 shows the post buckled shape of sample 6 which exhibits the local post buckling
at the mid height which is a prime example of good local buckling. In this test (SST (6)) 8
buckle half sine waves were observed, noticeable around the 60kN range until approx. 85kN
when the elastic waves along the length were lost as the web and flanges began to buckle
locally with significant deformation. Eventually failure occurred at approx. 90kN as shown
by the results in Figure 3.6. Figure 3.6 shows the vertical load-displacement curves for SST
sections individual samples only and the comparison with the ultimate buckling capacities
according to the two design codes.

Figure 3.5: SST(6) Buckled Shape (Green, 2014)

Figure 3.6: SST- buckling experiment data and comparison (Green, 2014)
46 | P a g e
 Table 3.4: SST, Failure Load Summary (Green, 2014)

Table 3.4 provides a summary of the ultimate capacities obtained from experiment and code
guidelines

Paired Experiment
Local failure was observed in both paired tests for the SST samples. Both tests provided
very similar failure modes in each case with one member in exhibiting local failure at mid-
height but with local failure at the bottom end of the other sample. In the case of the (7&3)
paired test, flange distortion was very noticeable at half failure load but was predominantly
elastic as there was significantly less permanent flange deformation after unloading.

Figure 3.7 shows the (5&2) paired test with elastic flange buckling and Figure 3.8 shows
details

Figure 3.7: SST(5&2) Buckled Shape Figure 3.8: SST(7&3) Buckled

(Green, 2014) (Green, 2014)

47 | P a g e
of the (7&3) paired test which shows typical local buckling failure in one sample and local
failure at the end of the other.

Figure 3.9 and Table 3.5 gives a summary of the ultimate capacities of the paired SST
samples along with the comparison of the results calculated using code design guidelines.

Figure 3.9: SST- Paired buckling experiment data (Green, 2014)

Table 3.5: SST Paired Failure Load Summary (Green, 2014)

3.4.3.2 SSS Results (Individual Only)

Figure 3.10 shows the buckled shape for SSS sample. Buckling at the top end could have
two causes. Firstly a weakness in either the material or the geometry, for example thinner
plate sections in this area or secondly the imperfect geometry of the cut ends of the sample.

48 | P a g e
It must be noted that the deformation shown in Figure 3.10 is the only visible deformation
while the rest of the member remained undisturbed. Enough samples were not available to
enable conclusive results when comparing with design codes for the 1.2mm profile.

Figure 3.10: SSS Buckled Shape (Green, 2014)

Figure 3.11 provide the ultimate capacities obtained from the experiment for the SSS
sample and also gives the comparison with the results based on the code design guidelines.

Figure 3.11: SSS- buckling experiment data (Green, 2014)

3.4.3.3 SLS Results

Individual Experiments

It is observed that local buckling failure occurred approx. one sixth from the top of the

49 | P a g e
loaded sample in each SLS single test with large flange deformation which shows the more
general effects of an imperfect member. Although SLS samples have slender web the failure
load tends to be close to that of SSS sample which would suggest that web is not a governing
element.

Figure 3.12: SLS Buckled Shape (Green, 2014)

Figure 3.13: SLS- buckling data experiment (Green, 2014)

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 Table 3.6: SLS- Failure Load Summary (Green, 2014)

Paired Experiment

The buckling failure loads for SLS samples did not match with each other as closely as the
SST paired samples matched with each other. Figure 3.14 and Figure 3.15 shows that the
samples buckled asymmetrically with each other and also with respect to their own
elements. This uneven buckling has, in turn, affected the overall capacity of the pair.

Figure 3.14: Paired SLS (5&4) Buckled Shape (Green, 2014)

In Figure 3.14 sample 6 in a pairing is shown to have buckled locally in the expected shape
however sample 3 in the pairing did not undergo typical local buckling. Local buckling in

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the sample 6 led to the pulling of the flanges of the sample 3 caused by the mid-height
connection of the pair.

Figure 3.15: Paired SLS (6&3) Buckled Shape (Green, 2014)

Figure 3.16: SLS Paired- buckling experiment data (Green, 2014)

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 Table 3.7: SLS Paired- Failure Load Summary (Green, 2014)

3.4.3.4 LSS Results (Individual Only)

Both LSS samples show local buckling to occur at approximately mid-height which has
been marked in orange in Figure 3.17 and Figure 3.18.

It is of worth to note that approx. 20 half buckle waves were observed as elastic local
buckling were clearly established by 45kN (~90% of maximum load) in each case,
corresponding to ~2mm vertical displacement.

Figure 3.17: LSS(1) Buckled Shape Figure 3.18: LSS(4) Buckled Shape
(Green, 2014) (Green, 2014)

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 Figure 3.19: LSS- buckling experiment data (Green, 2014)

Table 3.8: LSS- Failure Load Summary (Green, 2014)

3.4.3.5 LST Results (Individual Only)

Sample LST (6), shown in Figure 3.20 and LST (5) in Figure 4.24 shows similar buckling
behaviour. Contrary to the 20 half buckle waves observed in the LSS sample, it was
observed that both sections showed prominent elastic local buckling shapes with
approximately 9 half buckle waves at 50kN, ~45% of failure load.

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 Figure 3.20 LST(5) Local Failure Figure 3.21 LST(6) Local Failure
(Green, 2014) (Green, 2014)

Figure 3.23 LST- buckling data summary (Green, 2014)

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 Table 3.9: LST- Failure Load Summary (Green, 2014)
3.4.3.6 LLS Results
LLS(1), as shown in Figure 3.24, shows an asymmetric local and distortional buckling (see
a) and c)) which is due to the flange buckling in b) combined with the true mode of failure
local buckling.

Lack of a proper loading plate caused the deformation of the top surface seen in Figure 3.25
d) as the sample slipped off the load cell plate. Both LLS (4) and LLS (2) showed evidences
of elastic local buckling with 13 half buckle sine-waves. Figure 3.26 also shows slight
flexural deflection caused by the summation of the elastic local buckling waves in the web.

Figure 3.24: LLS- buckling data summary (Green, 2014)

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 Figure 3.25: LLS (1) Buckled Figure 3.26: LLS (2) Buckled Figure 3.27: LLS(4) buckled

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 Table 3.10: LLS- Failure Load Summary (Green, 2014)

3.4.4 Experiment Conclusion

Green (2014) did not observe any definite simple trends between experiment and code
guidelines. It was concluded that the coded design of lipped channel section exhibited
mixed agreement with the buckling results.

The short web sample at short length was shown to over-predict at nominal thickness and
under-predict at measured thickness by using coded design. Codes were observed to show
large variation in the ultimate capacity for long web, small plate thickness at either length
(SLS or LLS). However, coded design results were conservative with Eurocode results
greater than that of British standards. Finally, codes severely under-predicted the capacity
of LST profile. See Figure 3.29 for a general comparison.

Figure 3.28: Summary of buckling experiment and coded design (Green, 2014)

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CHAPTER 4 FINITE ELEMENT MODEL VALIDATION

4.1 INTRODUCTION

Elastic local buckling of a thin plate element does not necessitate its collapse or loss of load
carrying capacity. In fact, a plate can take considerable load beyond this initial buckling due
to the stretching of the middle surface of the plate (Purkiss, 2008). The problem of thin-
walled member becomes even more complicated due to the occurrence of local buckling,
global buckling and distortional buckling, or a combination of them.

Analytical methods commonly employed such as Effective Width Method and Direct
Strength Method are limited in its applicability because of its incapability in addressing the
issues of geometrical and material nonlinearities apart from its limitations in taking into
account interactions of failure modes (Haidarali and Nethercot, 2011). However, the present
study attempts to address all these issues by finite element (FE) method by performing
geometrical and material nonlinear post buckling analysis of axially loaded cold-formed
steel struts.

This section describes the procedure of finite element modelling of axially loaded cold-
formed steel strut using ABAQUS. A detailed summary of the FE simulation of the buckling
test carried out by Green (2014) is also described which would explain the validity of finite
element models in the post buckling analysis of cold-formed struts.

Imperfections were modelled as distributions of Eigen buckling mode shapes, although,

they do not typically resemble the dents and other localized imperfection that are common
in practice. The project aim is limited to obtain the predicted strength and instability rather
than attempting to study the imperfections as a physical reality. Notwithstanding, to address
the unpredicted and abnormal behaviour of certain samples such as SSS sample in the
experiment conducted by Green (2014), imperfections were modelled as a physical reality
to obtain a better understanding of the behaviour of cold-formed steel members. LLS
samples were not modelled due to the anomalies surrounding the experiment of this
particular sample which was explained in the section 3.4.3.6. ABAQUS model utilised the
exact nominal sections that are listed out in the Appendix A.

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4.2 CREATING THE FINITE ELEMENT MODEL

This section will briefly describe the step-by-step procedure that was employed for creating
the cold-formed steel strut model using the FE package ABAQUS CAE. Dr. P Mandal and
other MSc and PhD students helped through the process of modelling.

FE Modelling of a cold-formed member requires two different models to be created wherein

the first model performs linear elastic Eigen buckling analysis and the second model
performs geometrically and constitutively non-linear post-buckling analysis using general
procedure Static RIKS method. Linear Eigen buckling analysis is performed using the linear
perturbation procedure buckle analysis. Eigen value analysis does not account for the
problems in which post buckling analysis is needed and, therefore, the additional non-linear
RIKS analysis is performed. The second model, using RIKS method, was seeded with
initial imperfection based on the Eigen buckling modes obtained from the buckle analysis.
The buckling mode shapes obtained from the FE linear analysis were validated with
buckling mode shapes obtained from CUFSM analysis.

Part for the cold formed steel models were created as a 3D extruded deformable shell. The
midline geometry for each sample was used to create the part section and then extruded to
the required length.

Material properties were defined to exactly simulate the actual properties of the steel used
based on the results obtained from the coupon tensile test of the steel. Section 4.3 gives a
brief description regarding the material properties assigned for the simulated models.
Homogenous shell section with the required section thickness was assigned to the entire
part after the material definition.

Element and mesh sensitivity were not performed on any of the models used in this project
due to limitations of time. Nevertheless S4R elements with fine mesh size of 8-12mm were
employed in the models. S4R elements are far more typical in most of the literatures
(Schafer, 2010). S4R is a 4-node shell element which employs linear shape functions and
reduced integration which avoids shear locking (Schafer, 2010). See ABAQUS theory
manual for a complete description of the elements.

In the experiment bottom ends of the strut were pinned and top ends were roller. It can be
described that two transverse translations at the top end are fixed and longitudinal
movement is allowed, while at the bottom end three translations are prevented, all rotations

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of both ends are free except that the rotation of both ends about strut axis is restrained. To
simulate these boundary conditions, the kinematic coupling constraint technique in
ABAQUS is employed. Using coupling constrain with rigid category, all nodes on each end
cross-section are constrained to make rigid body section. All movements of each section
are referred to reference point which is created at the centroid of cross-section (Figure
4.1). The axial force and boundary conditions were applied at these reference points. The
kinematic coupling ensures that the end cross-sections of the steel strut remains planar after
the deformation (Lee, 2009).

For elastic analysis the buckle step, using the linear perturbation procedure 25-50 Eigen
values were requested to enable choice of the most valid Eigen mode shape to be used as
initial imperfection for the RIKS analysis. An upper limit of 300 iterations were used.

For the RIKS method of analysis, initial arc length of 0.01 and maximum of 1 were used
for all the models used throughout the project. Maximum number of increments was
assigned 100 for the modelling of individual samples and 200 for paired samples. Paired
samples were provided with higher increments to show the softening of equilibrium path
after the failure load.

Requested field outputs included: Reaction forces and moments (RF), translations and
rotations (U) and Stress components and invariants (S).

Node file keyword must be added in the command window to the elastic analysis to output
the displacements of nodes which can then be input into the non-linear analysis model. Also
imperfections cannot be input in the ABAQUS CAE and hence ABAQUS command
window should be used for the purpose. The keyword Imperfection should be used for the
purpose.

Figure 4.1: Thin-walled section with coupling constraint simulated

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4.3 MATERIAL DEFINITION

In the ABAQUS modelling the simplified stress strain curve values shown in Figure 3.2
and Tables 3.2 and 3.3 are used for the material property definition. Excel sheets were used
for calculating the true strains and true stresses for the definition of Plastic model in the
ABAQUS.

Steels that are cold-reduced or otherwise cold-worked show gradual yielding with
considerable reduction in modulus before reaching yield stress (Yu, 2000). Tensile test
conducted by Daniel Green also show this nature of stress-strain relation (see Figure 3.2).
To employ the actual stress-strain curve, therefore, a multi linear model should be used
instead of the classical bi-linear elastic-perfectly plastic model. But any deviation from the
classical bi-linear models in ABAQUS can seriously jeopardise the predicted response.
Schafer (2010) observed 13% drop in the capacity with a change of 1% reduction (0.99E)
in the modulus for the stresses above half of yield stress.

The tensile test data provided by Daniel Green is insufficient to determine the exact modulus
of elasticity of the steel used. The tensile data fails to provide the information regarding
proportionality limit which is very vital in the determination of modulus of elasticity of the
material. The only available information about the modulus of elasticity is the
manufacturers data of 207 GPa. An attempt was made to find an equivalent bi-linear model
based on the tensile test data, which gave a modulus of elasticity of 203 GPa for Y490 steel
(P2A and P2B coupons) while gave an unreasonable value of 178 GPa for Y590 steel (P1A
and P1B coupons).

For the ABAQUS modelling it was decided to use a classical bi-linear model with E = 203
Gpa for Y490 steel and E = 207 GPa for Y590 steel. Figure 4.2 represents the engineering
stress-strain curve for the modified model. Table 4.1 and Table 4.2 shows the stress-strain
relationship that was used in the ABAQUS plasticity model for Y490 and Y590
respectively.

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 700
600
500
400
300 Y490 Steel
Y590 Steel
200
100
0
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25

Figure 4.2: Engineering Stress Curve for Y490 and Y590 steel

Stress True Stress

Strain (N/mm )2 True Strain (N/mm2) Plastic Strain
2.41E-03 490 0.00241088 491.1813334 0.00E+00
4.50E-03 490 0.00448801 492.1991246 2.06E-03
0.0093 494 0.00925702 498.5729685 6.80E-03
0.0558 577 0.05429877 608.3303923 5.13E-02
0.11 609 0.10436002 672.5552493 1.01E-01
0.198 606 0.1806535 715.4760208 1.77E-01
0.21 577 0.19062036 686.9879475 1.87E-01
0.212 500 0.19227189 596.1359438 1.89E-01
Table 4.1: Stress-Strain Relationship for Y490 Plastic Model

Stress True Stress

Strain (N/mm2) True Strain (N/mm2) Plastic Strain
0.00285 590 0.00284619 591.6816425 0
0.0058 590 0.00578324 593.422 0.002916472
0.025 590 0.02469261 604.75 0.021771115
0.062 645 0.06015392 684.99 0.056844792
0.11 658 0.10436002 730.38 0.10083161
0.156 650 0.14496577 751.4 0.141335819
0.164 605 0.15186235 704.22 0.14846032
0.168 500 0.15529288 584 0.152471628
Table 4.2: Stress-Strain Relationship for Y590 Plastic Model

4.4 LINEAR BUCKLING ANALYSIS

4.4.1 Introduction

In the cold-steel members Eigen buckling analysis is basically focussed on the

determination of local, distortional and global buckling loads and mode shapes. Although
it does not represent actual capacity or collapse behaviour, both the load and the mode are
important proxies for predicting potential post-buckling reserve (Schafer, 2010). The

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buckling mode shapes are commonly utilised as the initial imperfection for the RIKS
analysis.

The numerical modelling result from the elastic buckling analysis is vital in the study of
collapse behaviour of cold-formed steel. Two tools were used in this research project for
the elastic buckling analysis: ABAQUS and CUFSM. The former is a well-known finite
element package while CUFSM implements semi-analytical finite strip methods (FSM).

CUFSM analysis is performed on few samples to draw a comparison with the FE elastic
buckling mode shape which will help in validating each other the elastic buckling analysis.

4.4.2 Linear Buckling Mode Shapes

4.4.2.1 SST Sample Model

FE Results

SST sample model performed analysis for 15 Eigen buckling mode shapes. Figure 4.3
illustrates the first 3 mode shapes for the SST sample model with the stresses that give
indications of the elastic stresses.

(a) First Mode- 79.183kN (b) Second Mode- 79.35 kN (c) Third Mode- 83.52 kN
Figure 4.3: EV Solution for SST Sample Model

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CUFSM Results
Figure 4.4 and Figure 4.5 shows two different plots that was derived from CUFSM analysis.
FSM results shows the predominant buckling modes to be distortional and local buckling
which, in fact, tallies with buckling modes obtained from FE analysis, however, some
differences in the Eigen buckling load can be observed.

81.182 kN
79.997
kN
79.227
kN

Figure 4.4: SST- Plot of load factor VS mode number (for L=600mm)

Figure 4.5: SST- Plot of load factor VS physical length (mode=1)

At physical length L= 600 mm FSM mode 1 is local-distortional buckling with m=8 half
wave, FSM mode 2 is again local-distortional buckling with m=7 half wave and FSM mode
3 also exhibits similar behaviour but with m=9. At the same physical length FEM buckling
mode 1 occurs with m=7, mode 2 occurs with m=8 and mode 3 occurs with m=6. Although,
both FEM and FSM exhibits local-distortional buckling with comparative Eigen buckling
loads, the difference in longitudinal half waves may be due to the change in boundary
conditions. FSM model assumes purely simply supported ends while FEM model restrains

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rotation about column axis. Schafer (2010) suggests that if the FEM model has same
boundary condition as the FSM model agreement is generally excellent.

4.4.2.2 SSS Sample Model (FE Analysis Only)

In the experiment SSS sample resulted in an anomalous behaviour wherein instead of

observing a local flange failure, as was observed in SST, a distortional type of failure at the
top end was observed which was suggested by Daniel Green to be due to imperfect end
geometry. To validate the Greens explanation for the occurrence of distortional behaviour
two models were created- one without any imperfect end geometry (SSS-1) and the other
with end geometry imperfection (SSS-2). In this section, Eigen value results obtained for
both models are illustrated. 15 Eigen buckling modes were generated for both the models.

FE Result- SSS-1

Figure 4.6 illustrates the first 2 mode shapes for the SSS-1 sample model with the stresses
that give indications of the elastic stresses.

(a) First Mode- 38.2 kN (b) Second Mode- 38.31 kN

Figure 4.6: EV Solution for SSS-1 Model

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FE Result- SSS-2

Figure 4.6 illustrates the first 2 mode shapes for the SSS-2 sample model with the stresses
that give indications of the elastic stresses.

(a) First Mode- 38.13 kN (b) Second Mode- 38.27 kN

Figure 4.7: EV Solution for SSS-2 Model

Eigen buckling analysis for the two models does not reflect any significant differences
either in mode shape or in the buckling load. Even the stress distribution along the length
behaves similarly except for some unnoticeable differences. Interestingly, this indexes to
the fact that imperfection in the end geometry has no or little influence on the elastic
buckling analysis. Therefore, elastic buckling behaviour is influenced to the large extend
by the cross-sectional properties and is least affected by any structural defects. This also
shows the limitation of linear elastic analysis in its applicability.

4.4.2.3 SLS Sample Model

The Eigen buckling mode shapes of SLS closely resembled SST buckling mode shapes
except for the Eigen buckling loads. A lower elastic buckling stress is typically of a plate
with longer buckle half wavelength and, therefore, with less sine waves. FSM can be used
to plot signature curves that will help in better understanding the influence of buckle

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wavelength on the SLS and SST profiles. But such detailed analytical studies are beyond
the scope of this research.

Both FSM and FEM analysis are used to understand the elastic buckling behaviour of the
SLS profile which will help in validating the results from both analysis to each other.

FE Results

SST sample model performed analysis for 35 Eigen buckling mode shapes. Figure 4.8
illustrates the first 3 mode shapes for the SLS sample model with the stresses that give
indications of the elastic stresses.

(a) First Mode- 24.26 kN (b) Second Mode- 24.52 kN (c) Third Mode- 26.94 kN
Figure 4.8: EV solutions for SLS model

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CUFSM Results

Figure 4.9 and Figure 4.10 shows two different plots derived from the CUFSM analysis.
The
curves reveals that the local-distortional buckling prevails in the elastic analysis which is in
excellent agreement with the ABAQUS results.

23.86
kN
23.56
kN 25.61
kN

Figure 4.9: SSS- Plot of load factor VS mode number (for L=600mm)

Figure 4.10: SSS- Plot of load factor VS physical length (for mode=1)

At physical length L= 600 mm FSM mode 1 is local-distortional buckling with m=5 half
wave, FSM mode 2 is again local-distortional buckling with m=6 half wave and FSM mode
3 also exhibits similar behaviour but with m=7. At the same physical length FEM buckling
mode 1 occurs with m=5, mode 2 occurs with m=4 and mode 3 occurs with m=4. The
difference in the elastic buckling mode shapes from FSM and FEM are less considerable
and it can be ascribed to the difference in the boundary condition which is explained in
Section 4.4.2.1.

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4.4.2.4 LST Results

The elastic buckling analysis were performed to obtain 35 buckling mode shapes in the
finite element method using ABAQUS. Interestingly, ABAQUS produced all the 35
buckling modes exhibiting local-distortional buckling without any global buckling. To
better understand the validity of FE buckling mode shapes FSM was also employed using
CUFSM.

FE Results

Figure 4.11 illustrated the three fundamental mode shapes with their stress values which
shows that the stresses are within elastic range.

(a) 1st mode-87.36kN (b) 2nd mode-87.39kN (c) 3rd mode-88.15kN (d) 11th mode-
Figure 4.11: EV solutions for LST model

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CUFSM Results

Figure 4.12 and Figure 4.13 are the two different curves of interest taken from the CUFSM
analysis results. Interestingly, CUFSM provides different results from the FEM analysis.

Figure 4.12: LST- Plot of load factor VS mode number (for L=1500mm)

Figure 4.13: LST- Plot of load factor VS physical length (for mode=1)

At physical length L= 1500 mm FSM mode 1 is global buckling with m=1 half wave, FSM
mode 2 is local-distortional buckling with m=19 half wave, FSM mode 3 and mode 4 also
exhibits similar behaviour (see Figure 4.12) but with m=20 and m=18. At the same physical
length FEM buckling mode 1 is local-distortional buckling with m=19, mode 2 and mode 3
is also local-distortional buckling with m=18. Nevertheless, mode 11 in both FEM and FSM

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can be found to be in agreement to a large extend. Table 4.3 shows a comparison between
elastic buckling load of FSM and FEM analysis.

FSM FEM
Mode buckling buckling
load (kN) load (kN)
1 67.96 87.36
2 85.82 87.39
3 85.9 88.15
4 86.27 88.23
11 108.64 95.28
Table 4.3: Elastic buckling load summary

Except for the 1st mode all other modes shows same type of failure modes although there
are differences in the longitudinal terms (m) and buckling load. Studying this variation and
drawing any comparison between them is outside the scope of this research.

[This part of the page is intentionally left blank]

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4.5 NON-LINEAR POST-BUCKLING ANALYSIS

4.5.1 Introduction

The FEM models developed to employ geometric and material non-linear analysis
represents the standard for computational prediction of the ultimate capacity and collapse
behaviour of cold-formed steel members. Non-linear analysis must be performed on an
imperfect member by seeding initial imperfections using the buckling mode shapes obtained
from the linear elastic buckling analysis.

Results of the non-linear collapse modelling is highly sensitive and, therefore, significant
judgement must be exercised by the analyst with respect to physical quantities particularly
geometric imperfections and residual stresses (quantities related to manufacturing)
(Schafer, 2010). Imperfections were implanted to serve the modelling convenience rather
than studying it as a physical reality because the scope of this research is limited to
predicting the ultimate capacity and triggering the buckling behaviour.

This section gives the experimental validation for the collapse behaviour for the samples
used in the experiment conducted by Daniel Green. Also an attempt is made to explain the
unexpected behaviours that was observed in samples such as SSS and SLS by taking into
account the physical imperfections that was present in the samples.

4.5.2 Post Buckling Simulation Results

This section will draw a comparison between experimental result and numerical result. To
compare the collapse buckling behaviour, images from the experiment and numerical
simulation showing the buckled model are illustrated.

4.5.2.1 SST Results

For the SST sample validation of the collapse behaviour was done for both individual and
paired samples. ABAQUS seems to work perfectly for both individual and paired SSS
sample models.

Individual Model

Figure 4.14 is an illustration of FE simulation of SST individual model done in ABAQUS

(2012). The illustration also provides insight into stress distribution at full yield along with
the final deformation and stress contour at the final deformation. The collapse mode was
triggered for an initial imperfection seeded with Eigen buckling mode 5 scaled to 1.75.

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(a) Full Yield (b) Final Deformation (c) Buckled SST
Sample
Figure 4.14: Experimental and numerical simulation collapse behaviour
comparison for SST individual model

(a) FE analysis plot of failure load (b) Experiment plot of failure load
Figure 4.15: Plots of load vs displacement for SST individual model

The prediction of collapse load by the FE model is 91.1 kN (see Figure 4.15 (a)) which is
0.88% more than the strength predicted by SST(1) sample and 6.94% less than the strength
predicted by the SST(6) sample. A major difference between the FE model and the
experimental sample is that FE model is more of an idealised model wherein the effects of

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residual stresses, localised imperfections, dents and many other physical defects are
ignored. An important physical quantity that was observed in the experimental sample but
was not considered in the FE model is the imperfect end geometry. Hence the FE model
cannot be taken as a holistic representative of a general SST sample, nevertheless,
represents the experimental sample.

As mentioned earlier, imperfections were modelled as a modelling convenience rather than

a physical reality, and it was not the goal of the project to accurately assess the imperfection
sensitivity to expected magnitude, and, therefore, it was intended just to perfectly capture
the strength and the collapse behaviour. This will explain the difference in vertical
displacements captured between FE simulation and experiment (see Figure 4.15).

Paired Model

The post-buckling analysis of SST paired demonstrated the collapse behaviour of the SST
sample in excellent agreement with the experiment. Figure 4.16 illustrates the FE simulation
collapse behaviour and experimental collapse behaviour. FE model successfully
simulated

(a) Buckled shape- flange distortion & local buckling (b) SST(5&2) Buckled Shape
Figure 4.16: Experimental and numerical simulation collapse behaviour
comparison for SST paired model

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the flange distortion in one sample and local buckling in the other. Collapse behaviour was
triggered by an initial imperfection implanted using Eigen buckling mode 3 at scale factor
of 4.5. Figure 4.17 shows the comparison of load-displacement curve between experiment
and FE model.

(a) FE analysis plot of failure load (b) Experiment plot of failure load
Figure 4.17: Plot of load VS displacement for SST Paired model

The prediction of collapse load by the FE model is 209.61 kN (see Figure 4.17 (a)) which
is 9.4% more than the strength predicted by SST(7&3) sample and 10.9% more than the
strength predicted by the SST(5&2) sample. It is particularly important to note that the FE
model collapse behaviour is in close approximation with SST(5&2) (see Figure 3.7) while
the strength seems to deviate by 9.4% away from SST(5&2) while being more closer to
SST(7&3).
The prediction of strength can be made even though the imperfections are not modelled as
a physical reality but it may lead to deviation from representing the exact deformation.

4.5.2.2 SSS Model

The experiment of SSS sample resulted in the flange distortion at the top end which was
presumed to be due to the imperfect end geometry which is having larger flange length than
web length. Due to the non-availabilty of sufficient samples experiment was limited in
understanding the exact collapse behaviour of the sample under the axial loading.

FE simulation modelled the sample taking into account the imperfect end geometry by
assuming flange length to be 0.75mm more than the web length on either ends. To simulate
non-uniform distribution of loading due to the imperfection, all nodes on the top end cross-
section except that on the web was constrained to the centriod using kinematic coupling

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constraint with rigid category. Figure 4.18 shows the FE model collapse behaviour
compared

to the experiment SSS sample behaviour.

(a) Post buckled SSS model (b) SSS sample buckled shape
Figure 4.18: Experimental and numerical simulation collapse behaviour
comparison for SSS model

(a) FE analysis plot of failure load (b) Experiment plot of failure load
Figure 4.19: Plot of load VS displacement for SSS model
FE model for the SSS profile predicted an ultimate strength of 54.14 kN with respect to
experiment ultimate capacity of 56.7 kN. FE prediction is just 4.5% less than the

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experimental model. Besides the excellent prediction of ultimate capacity, collapse
behaviour for the imperfect model also is in excellent agreement with the experiment
sample. Taking this validation into consideration, SSS model without an imperfect end
geometry was also modelled to understand the actual collapse behaviour for the profile.
Figure 4.20 illustrates the buckling behaviour and load-displacement curve for the model.

(a) First Yield (b) Final Deformation (c) Load-displacement plot

Figure 4.20: Collapse behaviour and collapse load summary for SSS sample

SSS profile modelled for perfect end geoemetry showed 13% improvement in the load
capacity from 54.14 kN to 61.23 kN. The collapse behaviour predicted showed resemblence
with the buckled shape of SST model. The capacity value of 91.1 kN is also an indicator of
the effect thickness has on the ultimate capacity of a cold-formed steel member.

4.5.2.3 SLS Model

The experiment on the SLS sample observed flange distortion at one-sixth from the top of
the member which is more of a behaviour of an imperfect member. As discussed in Section
4.1 the initial imperfection seeded with Eigen buckling mode shapes do not represent the
actual imperfection due to dents and localised imperfections, it is not possible to trigger the
exact collapse behaviour observed in the experiment. Modelling the imperfections as a
physical reality is the only solution to trigger the exact behaviour. However, an attempt was
made in this research to know if the imperfect end geometry was responsible for the flange

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distortion. To study the influence of imperfect end geometry different possiblities were
considered which include imperfection that caused loading on flanges alone, loading on
web and a flange, loading on web and lips; along with the different initial imperfections
using Eigen buckling mode shapes.

Loading on Web and Lip

SLS model under this condition were seeded with different initial imperfections of Eigen
buckling modes. Figure 4.21 shows the collapse behaviour of the model under various
modes.

(a) 1st mode (b) 2nd mode (c) 3rd mode (d) 15th mode

(e) 17th mode (f) 21st mode (f) 33rd mode

Figure 4.21: Collapse behaviour under loading on web & lips for various modes

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Loading on both flanges

Figure 4.22 illustrates the buckling behaviour for SLS model for various modes where load
is distributed only on flanges.

(a) 8th mode (b) 15th mode (c) 17th mode (d) 34th mode
Figure 4.22: Collapse behaviour under loading on both flanges for various
modes

Loading on web, lips and one flange

(a) 1st mode (b) 16th mode (c) 17th mode (d) 18th mode

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 (e) 28th mode (f) 30th mode

Figure 4.23: Collapse behaviour under loading on web & lips for various modes

Figure 4.21 gives an illustration of the different possible collapse behaviour for the SLS
model with load distributed to web, lips and one flange that demonstrates the condition of
a posible imperfect end geometry.

The FE model study conducted on identifying the collapse behaviour due to different
possible imperfect end geometry condition showed various plausible collapse behaviour, in
each case, under different initial imperfection, based on Eigen buckling mode shapes, but
none of them agreed with the collapse mechanism developed in the experiment of SLS
profile.

FE simulation with imperfect end geometry condition simulated for SSS profile agrees with
the experiment collapse behaviour excellently- see Section 4.5.2.2. Taking this validation
into consideration, it can be judged that suggesting the imperfect end geometry to be the
cause of flange distortion in SLS can be wronged. Therefore, the author recommends the
modelling of imperfection as a physical reality to better understand the problem but such
an attempt is outside the scope of this research. Besides, uncertainity in the material
definition of long web samples that was explained in Section 4.3 also persists in all long

81 | P a g e
web samples which complicates the understanding of this unexpected collapse behaviour
of SLS samples.

4.5.2.4 LST Model

The experiment of LST profiles were conducted on three different samples with all the three
exhibiting the same web and flange local buckling collapse behaviour. However, the FE
model of the LST profile undergoes a flexural-torsional buckling and as a result of the
lateral movement thus caused leads to locally buckled flange and web. FE model predicts,
in fact, more of a global failure than the local failure that was observed with the experiment
samples. Figure 4.24 shows the stages of FE model collapse along with the experiment
buckled sample.

(a) First Yield (b) Full Yield (c) Post buckled shape
Figure 4.24: Sequence of non-linear buckling of LST model

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The figure above illustrates the occurrence of global flexural buckling before the onset of
the locally buckled flanges. Figure 4.25 gives a comparison of the experiment buckled shape
and the FE buckled shape

Figure 4.25: Comparison of collapse behaviour of FE model and experiment sample

To understand the deviation in the collapse behaviour predicted by FE model from

experiment prediction, a total of 35 buckling mode shapes were considered as initial
imperfection. All the 35 buckling mode shapes failed in producing the kind of local buckling
that was manifest in the experimental buckling of the LST samples. Besides, another
attempt with rigid fixity to both translation and rotation in all directions at the bottom end
was also made based on the possible presumption of a such rigid fixity in the experiment.

Figure 4.26 illustrates the LST model with rigid fixity at bottom end for initial imperfection
modelled with first and twenty-third modes. As can be seen, both the models with fixity at
base cause flange distortion near the bottom ends along with the global flexural buckling
prior to the onset of local flange buckling near the mid-height. This dispproves the argument

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claiming the fixity at the base resulted in the local buckling behaviour observed in the
experiment.

(a) 1st mode- Sequence of post-buckling (b) 23rd mode- Post-buckled shape
Figure 4.26: Collapse behaviour of LST model with base fixity

(a) Failure load summary- LST pinned (b) Failure load summary- LST with fixity
Figure 4.27: Plot of load VS displacement for LST FE models

The ultimate capacities of the two models are shown in the Figure 4.27. The ultimate
capacity predicted by the model with base fixity is found to be in close approximation with

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the experiment failure load (see Figure 4.28), although, neither of the FE models accurately
simulated the exact collapse behaviour. However, the former model without the base fixity
predicts the ultimate capacity predicted by the EC3 revised code guidelines. Figure 4.28
shows the failure load summary of theoretical calculations and experiment.

Figure 4.28: LST- buckling data summary (Green, 2014)

Due to time limitaions any further research into this considerable difference oberved
between experiment and FE models was not expanded. This research has not considered the
effects of residual stresses and strains locked in the light guage steel members due to the
cold-forming process involved in the manufacture. A further understanding of the cold-
formed steel member modelling must be conducted by including the imperfections as a
physical reality and also including the effects of col-forming.

LSS modelling also resulted in the similar behaviour as LST model and therefore it is not
intended to illustrate its FE model.

4.6 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

FE models produced by ABAQUS was successful in generating models that accurately

predicted collapse behaviour of thin-walled struts for most short length members. An
accurate prediction was not obtained for SLS models because of the many uncertainites
prevailing the experiment SLS sample which was discussed in Section 4.5.2.3.

All the long member models behaved differently from the experiment samples which should
be studied in detail for better understanding of the problem. Long member models was
showing the collapse behaviour with prevelant failure mode as global flexural mode rather
than the local buckling mode obeserved in the experiment.
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The following improvements are suggested in the modelling of cold-formed struts:

Model the initial imperfection as a physical reality rather than for modelling
convenience.
Include the effects of residual stresses and cold-work of forming
Material modelling using von-mises yield criteria with kinematic hardening instead
of isotropic hardening.
Simulating the exact experimental framework by including the loading plates
through frictional interactions.

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CHAPTER 5 PARAMETRIC STUDY

5.1 INTRODUCTION

Cold-formed steel members which are mostly employed in the construction industry have
very slender, thin-walled open sections causing low lateral stiffness and low torsional
stiffness and, therefore, possessing high risk of local, distortional and global (flexural or
flexural-torsional) buckling. Clearly, the failure mechanism of these cold-formed steel
members are complex. The short length thin-walled compression members, generally, fail
by material yielding after an elastic-plastic local buckling behaviour while the longer length
sections are more likely to be prone to global buckling failure after a local or distortional
phase of behaviour. An obvious possibility of such interaction between different buckling
modes are likely to strongly affect the post-buckling behaviour, ultimate strength and failure
mechanism.

Evidently, the mode interaction phenomenon is taken into account by all the current cold-
formed steel design codes either through Effective Width Method or through the most
recently developed Direct Strength Method (Dinis & Camotim, 2010). The influence of
any mode interaction effects on the post-buckling behaviour is not the theme of the current
research and, hence, is only observed.

The section parameters of the cold-formed steel compression member are studied to
understand the influence of these parameters on the ultimate strength of the member. FE
models developed using ABAQUS are used for the parametric study. More than 50 models
are created to clearly understand the effect of geometry of plate elements, which form the
thin-walled steel members, on the failure modes. An understanding on the complexities
surrounding the failure behaviour of cold-formed steel members is made in the current
research. The different parameters are studied to develop the understanding of the influence
of the section geometry on the ultimate strength and compared with the predictions
calculated using the code provision which will provide insight into the reliability of code
provisions.

This section describes the various parameters that were taken into consideration and the
influence of each parameter on the ultimate strength. There is no much deeper
understanding into the different failure modes or their interactions.

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5.2 FE MODEL USED IN THE PARAMETRIC STUDY

Numerous finite element analyses should be performed to fully understand the collapse
behaviour influencing the ultimate strength of cold-formed steel compression members.
More than 50 FE models, to study the influence of different parameters on the ultimate
capacity, were created in the ABAQUS. The linear eigenvalue analysis were performed on
these models to obtain the elastic buckling load and the associated buckling modes (15
buckling modes were generated). The FE model validation done (see Chapter 4) showed
that the critical modes were generally the first three modes. Based on this observation, initial
imperfections were seeded into the non-linear analysis model based on the critical buckling
mode shape provided by the first mode. Finally, ultimate loads were obtained using the non-
linear analysis model.

The model described in Chapter 4 was successful in predicting both the collapse load and
failure mechanism for short length sections. The same model with pinned boundary
conditions were utilised by changing section geometry. The steel used in the experiment
had different grades (see Section 4.3) contrary to the manufacturers data. In this parametric
study, steel grade of S450 (manufacturers data) is used because using both grades
simultaneously is time consuming and, furthermore, the influence of steel grade on the
ultimate capacity is not the interest of this research. The classical bi-linear elastic-perfectly
plastic model with Youngs modulus, E=203GPa and Poissons ratio, =0.3 is employed
for the modelling.

5.3 ULTIMATE STRENGTH OF COLD-FORMED STEEL STRUT

This section describes the ultimate load capacity of a cold-formed steel compression
member by studying the influence of section geometry on the capacity. A general
understanding is only made on the subject.

Effect of Flange and Web on Ultimate Capacity

A set of 10 flanges were sampled for 4 different web height while keeping unchanged other
section geometry. Appendix B shows the table developed in MS-Excel which shows the
ultimate capacity for all the samples under consideration. Chapter 6 details the comparison
made with the EN1993-1-5(2006).

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 80

70

60

Collapse Load (kN)

50
h=76.2mm
40
h=152.4
30
h=228.6mm
20 h=304.8mm

10

0
0 100 200 300 400
Flange width (mm)

Figure 5.1: Load Summary for different flange widths

Figure 5.1 illustrates that the collapse load tends to increase with increase in flange widths.
Clearly, there is a proportional increase in the overall section area with increase in flange
widths. EN1993-1-5 employs Effective Width Method and, therefore, it would be
important to compute the effective area based on the ultimate capacities from the FE model.
Figure 5.2 plots the effective area in terms of percentage of overall area against flange
widths. The effective area calculation is based on the assumption that strength reduction
factor () for short length section usually lies between 0.95-1.0 and, hence, can be
calculated based on overall area which will, eventually, lie in close approximation with the
actual value.

60

50
Effective Area (%)

40

h=76.2mm
30
h=152.4mm

20 h=228.6mm
h=304.8mm
10

0
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350
Flange width (mm)

Figure 5.2: Effective Area data for different flange widths

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Figure 5.2 apparently shows that the effective area decreases with increase in flange widths
and web heights. The global buckling strength reduction factor () for the length considered
(L=500mm) in the FE models seems to be less considerable (See Appendix B). All the
models exhibit the strength reduction factor close to unity. The increase in the web height
virtually caused early local buckling of the web which, in turn, developed local buckling of
the flanges with lesser number of half buckle waves and eventually leading to lesser
effective area. Figure 5.3 illustrates the decrease in the elastic buckling load with increase
in the web heights.

20
18
16
Elastic Load (kN)

14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
5 55 105 155 205 255 305 355
Flange width (mm)

Figure 5.3: Elastic buckling load data for different web heights (b=150mm)

The linear elastic buckling analysis of the FE models clearly showed that the increase in the
web height decreased the number of half buckle waves (See Figure 5.4) which explains the
considerable reduction in the effective area.

Figure 5.4: Elastic buckling modes for web lengths 76.2mm and 228.6mm

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The increase in the flange widths also resulted in the decrease of elastic buckling load,
caused by the decrease in number of half buckle waves, which had a major impact on the
effective area of the section (See Figure 5.2). Nevertheless, the overall capacity of the strut
tend to increase with the flange width. Although the overall capacity is not highly influenced
by the web lengths it plays an important role in deciding the collapse failure mechanism
and, therefore, in the effective area calculation. Figure 5.5 and Figure 5.6 plot curves of
collapse load and effective area respectively against flange-web ratio.

68

66
Collapse Load (kN)

64

62
b=110mm
60
b=150mm
58 b=180mm

56

54
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
Flange/Web

Figure 5.5: Collapse load summary for different flange widths

45
40
35
30
%Aeff,num

25
b=110mm
20
b=150mm
15
b=180mm
10
5
0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
Flange/Web

Figure 5.6: Effective Area(%) for different flange widths

The curve shows clear indication that decreasing web heights is improving the overall
capacity unlike flange lengths. Increasing web lengths, although, has a little influence on
the load capacity, effective area (%) shows a negative sloping trend with the increase in

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web lengths. The post-buckling mechanism observed that the local buckling becomes
prevelant and distortional buckling diminishes with the increase in the web heights (See
Figure 5.7). Hence, at lower web heights distortional buckling prevail and with increase in
web height local buckling becomes prevelant until at a point distortional buckling becomes
negligible. This is the point of maxima in the curve. Futhermore, the negative trends
observed in the Figure 5.5 also seems to diminish with decrease in the flange widths which
is the manifestation of the diminishing distortional buckling behaviour. Clearly, it can be
concluded that triggering early local buckling prevents distortional buckling and, in turn,
improves the overall capacity until upto a point. This is why the effective area (%) has lower
slope with the increase in flange-web ratio (See Figure 5.6).

(a) Distortional Buckling (76.2mm) (b) Local Buckling (228.6mm)

Figure 5.7: Post-buckling behaviour of 150mm flange section for different web
heights

A study on the effect of global buckling was also conducted wherein 4 different sections
were created with constant area but varying flange-web ratio. Interestingly, flange-web ratio
plays an important role in defining the global buckling behaviour of the compression
member. The resistance against global buckling increased considerably with the increase in
flange-web ratios. The four sections were created for flange-web ratios of 0.25, 0.5, 1.0 and
1.2. Figure 5.8 illustrates the trend of global buckling strength reduction factor against
flange-web ratios.

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 0.995
0.99
0.985
0.98
0.975
0.97

0.965
0.96
0.955
0.95
0.945
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4
Flange/Web

Figure 5.8: Strength reduction factor VS flange-web ratio

Effect of thickness on Ultimate Capacity

FE models with varying thickness for different flange widths under given web heights and
also for different web heights under given flange widths were created. A total of 5 different
thickness-1.0mm, 1.2mm, 1.5mm, 2.0mm, 2.5mm and 3.0mm- were selected in the
modelling. See Appendix B for the full tabulated data created in MS-Excel. Chapter 6 will
discuss the comparison of results obtained using EN1993-1-5(2005).

450
400 b=50mm
350 b=80mm
Collapse Load (kN)

300 b=110mm
250 b=150mm
200 b=180mm

150 b=200mm

100 b=225mm

50 b=260mm
b=300mm
0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 b=310mm
thickness (mm)

Figure 5.9: Collapse load VS thickness for different flange widths

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 80

70 b=50mm
b=80mm
60
b=110mm
50
% Aeff
b=150mm
40
b=180mm
30
b=200mm
20
b=225mm
10 b=260mm
0 b=300mm
0 1 2 3 4
b=310mm
thickness (mm)

Figure 5.10: Effective area (%) VS thickness for different flange widths

The increase in flange width, although increased load carrying capacity, it was detrimental
to the effective area. Unlike this, thickness in spite of increasing the ultimate load capacity
the effective area (%) is also increased. Hence improving the thickness is an effective way
of decreasing both local and distortional buckling failure modes which caters for an efficient
section. Although increased flange widths reduces the load carrying capacity, effective
provision of thickness can improve the capacity considerably (See Figure 5.10) by
providing higher stiffness against distortional buckling.

80

70

60
t=1.0mm
50
% Aeff

t=1.2mm
40
t=1.5mm
30
t=2.0mm
20
t=2.5mm
10 t=3.0mm
0
0 100 200 300 400
Flange width (mm)

Figure 5.11: Effective area (%) VS flange width for the different thickness

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Figure 5.11 demonstrates the efficiency the improvement of thickness provides to a section.
Based on this observation, an important conclusion can be drawn that for a basic section
selected the improvement in thickness provides both an efficient and economic section over
a section with higher flange width or web height.

Area=292.4 mm2 Area=592.4 mm2

(a) (b)

Area=350.8 mm2 Area=584.8 mm2

(c) (d)
Figure 5.12: Sections with varying thickness and flange widths

Four sections, as shown in Figure 5.12, is used to study the efficiency of section based on
thickness improvement and flange width improvement. Section in the Figure 5.12(a) is
improved by providing flange width of 200mm (see Figure 5.12(b)) on one hand and on the
other hand improvement in the thickness to 2.0mm is made. Table 5.1 shows the collapse
load for each case.

Collapse
Section Load (kN)
(a) 53.4
(b) 66.67
(c) 71.25
(d) 148.82
Table 5.1: Load summary for various sections

Interestingly, the section improved with the thickness is more efficient and economic than
the section improved with flange width. Section (c) provided an ultimate capacity of

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71.25kN for an area of 350.8mm2 while the section (b) barely provided 66.67kN for an area
of 584.8mm2. Section (c) with just 40% of the area of section (b) possesses higher capacity
which shows the efficiency the designers obtain when section is improved by means of
thickness. Section (d) is designed to provide the area with close approximation to that of
section (b), which, interestingly, provides a capacity more than twice the capacity of section
(b). This finding is very critical from a designers point of view which, in a way, hands in a
tool to choose the most efficent sections.

Most importantly, distortional buckling is considerably reduced with the increase of

thickness. It has been discussed earlier that increase in the web heights can effectively
control distortional buckling to provide improved capacity (but less considerable). Although
capacity was increased with the increase in web lengths it was seen that the effective area
(%) was only little influenced. But with the increase in thickness, besides the influence on
capacity and effective area (%), it clearly affects the mode of failure as well.

(a) t= 1mm (b) t=3mm

Figure 5.13: Buckling failure modes for different thickness

Figure 5.13 illustrates that the distortional buckling considerably diminishes with the
increase in thickness. In fact, it was seen that even the web length improvement controls
distortional buckling but it is a reality that increasing web length seriously affects effective
area by enhancing local buckling. However, with regard to thickness either of the two plate

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buckling phenomena- local and distortional bucklings- are properly controlled and hence
improves both capacity and effective area (%) as well. Figure 5.14 clearly shows the effect
of web and thickness on the ultimate capacity.
450
400
350
Collapse Load (kN) 300 t=1.0mm
250 t=1.2mm
200 t=1.5mm
150 t=2.0mm
100 t=2.5mm
50 t=3.0mm
0
0 100 200 300 400
Web (mm)

Figure 5.14: Load summary for different thickness and web heights

Figure 5.14 clearly explains that increase in web has a little influence on the overall capacity
while the thickness consdirably improves overall capacity. And it was explained earlier the
efficiency and the economy of improving section thickness.

Effect of lip and overall length on ultimate capacity

A detailed study under this section was not performed due to time limitations. But it was
possible to make a basic understanding of the significance of provision of lips and also the
effects of the compression member length on the ultimate capacity.

The variation of ultimate capacity with lip length is illustrated in the Figure 5.15.

160
140
Collapse load (kN)

120
100
80
60
40
20
0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
Lip length (mm)

Figure 5.15: Collapse load summary for varying lip length

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 50
45
40
35
30

%Aeff
25
20
15
10
5
0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
Lip length (mm)

Figure 5.16: Effective area (%) VS lip length (mm)

A definite increase in the overall capacity is observed with the provision of improved lip
length. The increase in the effective area (%) shows that the plate buckling is considerably
reduced with the provision of sufficient lip length. The elastic buckling mode shape displays
the effects of distortional buckling at lower lip length and is seen diminshing with the
increase of lip length (See Figure 5.17). The distortional buckling occuring considerably
reduces the effective area and Figure 5.16 clearly shows at higher lip lengths effective area
(%) is quite high. Interestingly, after a certain lip length effective area (%) seems to be
unaffected by the lip length which is quite intriguing. More number of samples must be
studied to establish and understand any criteria which governs the effect of lip length on the
effective area (%) especially the straight-line behaviour of the curve after a particular lip
length.

At lower lip length, the compression member showed distortional buckling in its post-
buckling phase while the failure mode at higher lip length showed local buckling being
prevelant (See Figure 5.17). The higher the lip length lower the distortional buckling which,
in turn, benefits the section with improved effecctive area. Moreover, the straight-line
behaviour of the curve in Figure 5.16 is an evidence to the fact that increasing lip length has
little influence on local buckling while a complete elimination of distortional buckling has
occured.

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 (a) lip length = 10mm (b) Lip length = 50mm
Figure 5.17: Elastic buckling and post-buckling behaviour for sections with different
lip length

Apart from controlling distortional buckling global buckling resistance is also improved
with the increase in the lip length. It should be noted that increasing lip length effectively
distributes more area away from the neutral axis of the section which, in turn, increase
radius of gyration and, eventually, reduces the slenderness ratio. Furthermore, the channel
sections, being an open section, is highly susceptible to warping inducing lateral torsional
buckling. As the lip lengths are increased, flanges become stiffer against warping by the
lips acting as warping restraint. Figure 5.18 is a curve of strength reduction factor () plotted
against lip length which shows a steady increase in with lip length.

0.94
0.935
0.93
0.925
0.92
0.915

0.91
0.905
0.9
0.895
0.89
0.885
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
Lip length (mm)

Figure 5.18: Strength reduction factor VS lip length

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The increase in length, as expected, caused a decrease in the collapse load but, interestingly,
a change in the effective area was also recorded, although the section remained the same.
Figure 5.19 shows the effective area (%) plotted against the length.

80
70
60
% Aeff 50
40
30
20
10
0
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500
Length (mm)

Figure 5.19: Effective area (%) VS length

The increase in effective area implies the occurrence of interaction between global buckling
and the plate buckling modes (local and distortional). Interestingly, global buckling
enhances the capacity which means it resists local and distortional buckling modes until up
to a point. After 2500mm length global buckling becomes more prevalent which, in fact,
becomes detrimental in triggering distortional buckling. This behaviour is clearly seen in
the post-buckling behaviour of the section having a length more than 2500mm.

5.4 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

A series of parametric study was performed on the numerical model, which was validated
in chapter 4, to study and understand the buckling behaviour of an axially compressed
lipped channel columns. The parameters that was studied involved the section geometries-
thickness, web height, flange width and lip length.

Numerical studies were performed on a total of 140 finite element models with the variation
of the section geometries. Few conclusions were drawn regarding the buckling performance
of the cold-formed lipped channel sections, as shown below, which is important in the
design of cold-formed steel sections:

Increasing the flange width improved the ultimate capacity of the lipped channel
section, although, the percentage of effective area (in terms of overall area) was
found to be decreasing and prevalence of distortional buckling mode was increasing.

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 In contrast, the increase in the web height arrested the distortional buckling by
favouring early local buckling and thus improving the capacity. However, beyond a
point the web height increase was found to be detrimental to the ultimate capacity
of the section.
Improving the thickness is the most efficient and economic means of attaining an
optimum section. Increasing the thickness can provide sections with the same
capacity of a thinner section by ensuring an astonishing 40% reduction in the area
of the section. The ultimate capacity is controlled to a large extend with increase in
the thickness by providing higher stiffness against distortional buckling.
Increasing lip length effectively improves the capacity of section by ensuring local
buckling in the flanges. The effective area increased with the lip length until after a
point effective area v/s lip length curve showed saturation, where distortional
buckling mode was observed to be negligible.
The improvement in the flange/web ratio is an effective way of providing resistance
against overall buckling. The increase in the overall length is found to be detrimental
to overall buckling.

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CHAPTER 6 DESIGN GUIDELINES OF EC3

6.1 INTRODUCTION

Extensive researches have been carried out on cold-formed steels for the past few decades.
Lately, many countries around the world such as United Kingdom, Canada, United States,
China, Japan, Australia, Poland, South Africa, Finland and Sweden have introduced design
provisions for cold-formed steel members. Due to the low lateral stiffness and torsional
stiffness, the limit states (depending on the configuration of the section, thickness of
material and column length) under consideration are: (a) Yielding (b) Overall column
buckling and (c) Local buckling of individual elements (Yu, 2000).

Design provisions that take into account both the effects of local buckling and distortional
buckling have been included in the Eurocode specification. The provisions for local and
distortional buckling are based on the Effective Width Method developed for cold-formed
members by Winter (Purkiss, 2008). The method assumes that the total load is carried by
two fictitious strips adjacent to the edges of the plates which carry uniform stress equal to
yield strength of the steel and the intermediate region unstressed (Purkiss, 2008).

This chapter describes the EN 1993-1-5(2006) guidelines on ultimate strength prediction of

a cold-formed steel compression member. Furthermore, it draws a comparison of the design
guidelines with the FE model predictions established in chapter 5.

6.2 CALCULATIONS BASED ON EC3

6.2.1 Local Buckling

6.2.1.1 Elastic local buckling stress

Bulson (1970) expressed the critical elastic compressive stress for the buckling of plates
under compression as

where bp is the width of the plate, is the Poissons ratio and k is the buckling coefficient
depending on stress ratio and plate boundary condition. Table 4.1 of EN 1993-1-5(2006)
gives expression for k as follows:

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For doubly supported compression elements,

For outstand compression elements (support at 1),

For outstand compression elements (support at 2),

For single edge fold stiffener (cl 5.5.3.2.5 in EN 1993-1-3(2006)),

where stress ratio =2 /1 (1 is the larger compressive stress, 2 is the smaller compressive
stress or tensile stress and the tensile stress is assumed negative), bp and cp are the mid-line
dimensions of flange width and lip length respectively. Outstand elements are those without
any edge lips or intermediate stiffeners nor any plate supporting the edges.

6.2.1.2 Calculation of Effective width (Post-buckling behaviour)

The calculation of effective width depends on the stress distribution during when the plate
fails. A number of factors such as pattern of applied compressive stresses and the boundary
conditions, relative slenderness and geometric imperfections of the plates influences this
stress distribution (Purkiss, 2008). Certain empirical equations have been recommended in
EN 1993-1-5 (2006) for the calculation of effective width of a compression element.

For doubly supported compression elements (cl 4.4.2 in EN 1993-1-5 (2006)),

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For outstand compression elements or single edge fold stiffener (cl 4.4.2 in EN 1993-1-5
(2006)),

in which,

Where is the reduction factor to calculate the effective width (see Figure 6.1 and 6.2), fyb
is the basic yield strength of the material, com,Ed is the largest compressive stress in the
compression element (see Section 6.2.2) and M0 is the partial safety factor for the material.

Figure 6.1: Effective width of doubly supported elements (Purkiss, 2008)

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 Figure 6.2: Effective width of outstand elements (Purkiss, 2008)

6.2.2 Distortional Buckling

EN 1993-1-5 (2006), in the design of compression elements with intermediate or edge

stiffeners, assumes that the stiffener behaves as a compression member with continuous
partial restraint, with a spring stiffness (see Figure 6.3) defined by

where is the deflection is the deflection of the centroid of the stiffener due to the unit load,
b1 is the horizontal distance from the web line to the centroid of the effective area of the
edge stiffener and hp is the depth of the web (Purkiss, 2008). The elastic stress for a
sufficiently long strut on an elastic foundation of stiffness K, which is the critical stress of
distortional buckling of edge stiffener, is given by

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where Is is the effective second moment of area of edge stiffener about its centroid (see
Figure 6.3(d)) (Purkiss, 2008).

(d)

Figure 6.3: (a) Distortional buckling model used in EN 1993-1-5 (2006) (b) Edge
stiffener on an elastic foundation of spring stiffness (c) model used to determine spring
stiffness coefficient (d) Effective section of an edge stiffener (Purkiss, 2008)

The design provisions in EN 1993-1-5 (2006) is taken into account by determining the
reduced thickness of the edge stiffener by the following recommendations,

where,

Section 5.5.3.2 in EN 1993-1-3 (2006) describes the following steps for calculating d:

106 | P a g e
 Step 1 Obtain an initial effective cross-section using effective widths determined by
assuming that stiffness gives full restraint and com,Ed = fyb / M0.
Step 2 Use the initial effective cross-section of the stiffener for calculating the
thickness reduction factor for distortional buckling, allowing for the effects of
continuous restraint.
Step 3 Iterate to refine the value of reduction factor for buckling of the stiffener;
that is, recalculate the effective widths of the lip and part of the flange near the lip
based on the compressive stress com,Ed = d fyb / M0 and calculate the reduction
factor again based on the new effective widths. The iteration stops when reduction
factor d converges.

The design value of resistance to axial force due to local, distortional buckling and global
buckling is determined based on the effective area of the section,

The reduction factor () can be calculated using the equations below in EN 1993-1-1 (2005)
or by the buckling curve shown in Figure 6.4. For lipped channel sections, buckling curve
b is used (=0.34) as per recommendations of Table 6.3 in EN 1993-1-3 (2006).

Figure 6.4: Buckling curves to calculate reduction factor (Green, 2014)

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6.3 COMPARISON OF EC3 RESULTS WITH FE MODEL

As discussed in previous chapters, compared with the conventional design followed in hot
rolled section, the behaviour of cold-formed steels are complicated due to the pronounced
role of instabilities and, therefore, design is tedious as well. For the past few decades, the
extensive researches conducted has added much to our understanding of cold-formed steel
behaviour. It is important to investigate the consistency of the current available design codes
with the modern advancement in the field. This section compares the results obtained using
EN 1993-1-5 (2006) design guidelines with the results obtained from the validated FE
models to understand the reliability of the code of practice. Chapter 5 describes the
parametric study conducted on those validated FE models from which the results are taken
for the comparison.

Effect of flange and web on ultimate capacity

EN 1993-1-5 (2006) provisions contain recommendations to accommodate the influence of

flange width on both distortional and local buckling in determining the ultimate capacity of
a cold-formed steel compression member (see Section 6.2.1). In order to understand the
influence of flange width based on EC3 calculation, 10 different flanges for 4 web length
were taken into consideration.

56
54
52
Collapse load (kN)

50
h=76.2mm
48
h=152.4mm
46
h=228.6mm
44
h=304.8mm
42
40
0 100 200 300 400
Flange width (mm)

Figure 6.5: Collapse load summary for varying flange widths (EC3)

As per the EC3 provisions, calculation for section capacity shows a steady decrease in the
value as shown in the Figure 6.5. Contrary to this behaviour, FE model shows a positive
slope for the collapse load with the increasing flange width (See Figure 6.6).

108 | P a g e
 80

70

60

Collapse Load (kN)

50
h=76.2mm
40
h=152.4
30
h=228.6mm
20 h=304.8mm

10

0
0 100 200 300 400
Flange width (mm)

Figure 6.6: Revisited- Collapse load VS flange width (FE model results)

The comparison of effective area obtained as per the EC3 provisions with that of FE model
prediction shows similar declining trend (see Figure 6.7 and Figure 5.2). In the plots of
effective area, it can be noticed that at lower flange widths, FE model and design method
come in much closer agreement which tends to deviate away with the increase in flange
width. Clearly, EN 1993-1-5 (2006) recommendations under predict the capacity of the
member in all the samples considered.

70

60

50

40
% Aeff

h=76.2mm

30 h=152.4mm
h=228.6mm
20
h=304.8mm
10

0
0 100 200 300 400
Flange width (mm)

Figure 6.7: Effective area (%) VS flange width (EC3)

With the increase in flange width, distortional buckling become more predominant over
local buckling. The assessment of effective area, using EC3 provisions, gave 22.04%
considering only local buckling effects which when compared to 22.31% of FE model are
in closer agreement. With the effects of distortional buckling included effective area is

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barely 12% of the overall area. Figure 6.8 illustrates the comparison of effective area (%)
between FE model and design method for the section with web height equal to 152.4mm.

50
45
40
35
30

% Aeff
25
20 FE model
15 EC3
10
5
0
0 100 200 300 400
Flange width (mm)

Figure 6.8: Comparison of effective area between FE model and EC3

Clearly, FE model is stiffer against local and distortional buckling than the design model.
Furthermore, the design model tends to lose the stiffness against buckling quicker than the
FE model. In order to understand the variation of effective area (%) with web height, Figure
6.9 plots a graph based on constant flange widths.

35
30
25
% Aeff

20
b=110mm
15
b=150mm
10
b=180mm
5
0
0 100 200 300 400
Web height (mm)

Figure 6.9: Effective area (%) VS web height (EC3)

Both the design method and FE models agrees very closely with the variation of web heights
alone. More importantly, it is a fact that with increase in web height local buckling is the
most predominant failure mode and EC3 provisions also consider only local buckling
effects on web height. In other words, it can be presumed that EC3 recommendations for
local buckling are more reliable than those for distortional buckling.

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 FE model EC3

70 65.95 65.4 65.38

62.37 63.23 61.75 62.79
60.4
60 55.22 52.62
50

COLLAPSE LOAD
40

30

20

10

0
50 80 110 150 180 200 225 260 300 310
FLANGE WIDTH

Figure 6.10: Comparison of ultimate loads for the section of h=152.4mm

Figure 6.10 shows that huge difference occurs between the FE model results and the design
model results especially at higher flange widths where distortional buckling is more
prevalent. The greatest difference occurs at the flange width (b) equal to 310mm at which
an error of 35.6% is seen when compared with FE models (see Figure 6.11). The errors in
calculation widens with the error occurring in the calculation of effective area (see Figure
6.8). As discussed earlier, presumably, it can be concluded that equations employed for
calculation of effective widths that takes into account effects of distortional buckling, is the
reason for such huge difference.

30.0
21.5 %
20.0

10.0
Collapse load

0.0
50 80 110 150 180 200 225 260 300 310
-10.0 -3.6 %

-20.0
-20.0 %
-30.0 -26.0 %
-28.8 % -28.2 %
-30.4 %
-40.0 -34.9 % -35.4 % -35.6 %
Flange width

Figure 6.11: Difference of ultimate capacities of EC3 compared to FE model

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Effect of thickness on ultimate capacity

EN 1993-1-5 (2006) recommends a reduction factor for the thickness in the calculation of
effective area in order to accommodate the effects of distortional buckling on the edge
stiffeners (see Section 6.2.2). 12 models were included in the study to assess and understand
the influence of thickness on the cold-formed steel compression member in which 6 models
had varying flange widths and remaining 6 models had varying web length.

400
b=50mm
350
b=80mm
300
Collapse load (kN)

b=110mm
250
b=150mm
200
b=180mm
150
b=200mm
100
b=225mm
50
b=260mm
0
b=300mm
0 1 2 3 4
thickness (mm) b=310mm

Figure 6.12: Collapse load summary for varying thickness (EC3)

The ultimate capacity prediction based on EC3 recommendations shows a definite increase
in the capacity values, as shown in Figure 6.12, with the increase in thickness. Unlike the
previous case, both the FE model and the design model curves for ultimate capacity shows
excellently similar trend (see Figure 5.9). Moreover, EC3 provisions successfully explains
the increasing trend of the percentage effective area, observed in the FE models (see Figure
5.10), by replicating the exactly same curve trend (see Figure 6.13).

90
80
70
t=1.0mm
60
% Aeff

50 t=1.2mm
40 t=1.5mm
30
t=2.0mm
20
10 t=2.5mm
0 t=3.0mm
0 100 200 300 400
Flange width (mm)

Figure 6.13: Effective area (%) VS flange width for different thickness (EC3)

112 | P a g e
 60

50

40

% Aeff
30
FE model
20
EC3
10

0
0 1 2 3 4
thickness (mm)

Figure 6.14: Comparison of effective area between EC3 and FE model

Although, there was excellent agreement in the behaviour of the ultimate capacity and
effective area curves, discrepancies still persists with regard to prediction of collapse load.
Figure 6.14 shows that at lower thickness, where the FE model displayed predominance of
distortional buckling at the post-buckling phase (see Figure 5.13), EN 1993-1-5 (2006)
recommendations under predicts the ultimate capacity again. As the thickness ascends,
distortional buckling is also seen diminishing and it can be noticed that EC3 provisions very
well predicts the ultimate capacity at higher thickness where distortional buckling is
negligible. It seems that the current design methods lack consistent methods for proper
prediction of buckling failure modes especially distortional buckling. A combination of
more refined methods of predicting both local and distortional buckling modes and
improved understanding of post-buckling behaviour is necessary for developing more
reliable methods into the design of thin-walled compression members.

FE model EC3

450
392.46
400 375.3
350
291.95
COLLAPSE LOAD

300 267.7
250
199.64
200 178.4
150 119.69
82.46 104.4
100 60.21 68.5
50 48.4

0
1 1.2 1.5 2 2.5 3
THICKNESS

Figure 6.15: Comparison of ultimate loads with varying thickness (h=152.4mm)

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The collapse load calculated using EC3 provisions tends to move away from the FE model,
as shown in Figure 6.15, when the thickness decreases which, as discussed earlier, is due to
the more conservative effective area prediction. At higher thickness, difference between FE
model and EC3 predictions diminish to as low as 4.4% and a difference as high as 19.6% is
seen in lower thickness models (see Figure 6.16). These figures convey the serious
discrepancies surrounding distortional buckling prediction and, hence, the effective width
calculation for the same.

0.0
1 1.2 1.5 2 2.5 3

-5.0
-4.4 %
Collapse load

-10.0 -8.3 %
-10.6 %
-15.0 -12.8 %

-20.0 -17.0 %
-19.6 %

-25.0
thickness

Figure 6.16: Difference of ultimate capacities of EC3 compared with FE model

Effect of lip and overall length on ultimate capacity

EN 1993-1-5 (2006) provisions include the effects of lip in estimating ultimate capacity
based upon special provisions in EN 1993-1-3 (2006) which gives the expression for
calculating buckling coefficient of lips (see Section 6.2.1). In the research focus is on the
behaviour of axially loaded cold-formed steel columns where flexural buckling is the only
global buckling mode occurring. A single model, both in the case of study of variation of
lip length and overall length, was only considered in the research due to limitations of time.

EC3 prediction of ultimate capacity, as shown in Figure 6.17, has a constantly growing
curve while FE model, although the curve is ascending too, shows moderate slopes when
compared to the steeper slopes of the former (see Figure 5.15). Interestingly, the effective
area (%) of the FE model saturates after 30mm lip length while EC3 models predict section
improvement with the lip length (see Figure 6.18). Evidently, EC3 prediction seems to over-
estimate the potential of lip length in influencing the ultimate capacity.

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 160
140

Collapse load (kN)

120
100
80
60
40
20
0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
Lip length (mm)

Figure 6.17: Collapse load summary for different lip lengths (EC3)

50
45
40
35
30
% Aeff

25
20
15
10
5
0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
Lip length (mm)

Figure 6.18: Effective area (%) VS lip length (EC3)

Although the trend of the curve in both cases differ with each other, at higher lip length
difference is reduced to 1.5%. But even this difference seems to widen with the lip length
because of the constant improvement of the section predicted by EC3 recommendations
(see Figure 6.19). For a lip length of 10mm, Figure 6.19 shows a percentage error of +93.1%
where a massively high over-prediction of EC3 is seen. Interestingly, when the ultimate
capacity was reassessed for the section with the same lip length of 10mm by considering
the flange as an outstand compression element, the capacity was 45.4kN which means a
difference of -5%, coming down from +93.1%. Although it can only be presumed, it can be
noticed that the influence of the lip length in the plate buckling takes into effect only after
a particular value of lip length which the EC3 provisions fail to include in their
recommendations. Moreover, at lower lip length distortional buckling modes are more
prevalent in which case again EC3 provisions differ with the FE model.

115 | P a g e
 100.0 93.1 %

80.0

60.0

Collapse load
40.0

17.9 %
20.0
4.2 %
0.0
0 10 20 30 40 -1.5 % 50
-12.6 % -8.0 %
-20.0
Lip length

Figure 6.19: Difference of ultimate capacities of EC3 compared to FE model (Lip

length)

25.0 20.5 %
20.0
15.0
Collapse load (kN)

10.0
5.0
0.0
-5.0 500 600 800 1000 1200 1500 1700 2000 2500 3000
-10.0
-15.0 -12.8 % -11.9 %
-12.8 %
-20.0 -12.5 % -16.3 %
-15.9 %
-14.1 % -20.5 %
-25.0 -16.6 %
Length

Figure 6.20: Difference of ultimate capacities of EC3 compared to FE model

(Length)

For short length sections, the change in the overall length, although there are differences in
the capacity predictions, the percentage error for different lengths does not change
considerably. But for longer sections, there is an increase in the error percentage to the
extent that EC3 over-predicts the capacity. At higher lengths the FE model exhibited failure
modes involving distortional-global buckling modes interaction. EC3 prediction with
almost all the models exhibiting distortional buckling remained inconsistent and unreliable
throughout the studies conducted.

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6.4 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

All the results that were obtained from the finite element analysis performed on the 140
models were compared with the calculations made based on EN 1993-1-5 (2006) and
presented. Unfortunately, the FE results and the design code results showed considerable
deviation in most cases.

EC3 recommendations showed a decreasing trend of percentage effective area (in terms of
overall area) with the increase in flange width, as was observed in the finite element
analysis. However, calculation based on the EC3 resulted in the decrease of overall capacity
which was not the case with the behaviour obtained from the finite element analysis.

Unlike the case with flange widths, both EC3 recommendations and finite element analysis
observed an increasing trend of effective area (%) and ultimate capacity with the increase
in thickness. However, as the thickness increases the discrepancy of ultimate capacity
prediction also was wider to the extent that discrepancy increased from -4.4% to -19.6%.

The comparison made under the influence of lip length on the ultimate capacities between
EC3 recommendations and finite element analysis showed an astonishingly high error of
+93.1%, where EC3 provisions completely overestimated the strength.

In all the cases, EC3 showed considerable difference from the finite element analysis results
when the distortional buckling was the governing instability. It shows the unreliability of
the EC3 recommendations in predicting the ultimate capacity of the cold-formed steel
member especially when the buckling is governed by distortional buckling.

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CHAPTER 7 CONCLUSIONS AND FURTHER WORKS

7.1 INTRODUCTION

The investigation into the post-buckling behaviour and ultimate capacity of the lipped
channel columns was describes and presented in this report. Finite element analysis were
performed on a set of samples to understand the elastic and elastic-plastic behaviour of the
cold-formed lipped channel column axially compressed between simply-supported ends.
The numerical results were compared with results obtained from the EC3 recommendations
and are presented.

Finite element models of the cold-formed steel compression members having the lipped
channel sections were created using the finite element package ABAQUS 6.12. These
models were validated against the results obtained from an experiment conducted on cold-
formed lipped channel columns by Green (2014). The results included ultimate capacity
and the failure mechanism. Then an extensive parametric study was conducted on this
validated model. About 140 finite element models were conducted for a range of cold-
formed steel lipped channel columns to investigate the influence of geometric sections on
the ultimate capacity. The parametric study was then used to assess the current design rules
recommended in EN 1993-1-5 (2006). The study did not intent to provide any improved
alternative design equations to the EC3 provisions rather it was confined to understanding
the consistency and reliability of the EC3 recommendations.

This final chapter will brief the important findings that were made in the research and also
present the scope of further studies that will provide even more refined understanding of
the cold-formed steel behaviour under axial compression.

7.2 SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIVE REMARKS

Chapter 3 of this report has detailed the results of the experimental investigation made by
Green (2014). Green (2014) has reviewed two major codes of practice used in UK based on
the experimental results. He observed that the codes show large variation in the ultimate
capacity with the experiments especially for long web samples. However, it was found that
EC3 recommendations were much more conservative than the British standards. In addition,
it was also found that the true material properties of a batch of steel showed a 31%
difference from the quoted values which raise concerns over the uncertainties involved in
the design of members.

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Chapter 4 has presented the details of finite element models and their validation. Elastic
buckling analysis results derived from CUFSM were used to compare and validate the
elastic buckling analysis performed using ABAQUS which established the most critical
shapes of initial imperfections for the non-linear analysis of the finite element model. The
elastic buckling and post-buckling mechanism was successfully investigated using shell
finite elements on ABAQUS for most short length sections. However, the longer sections
in ABAQUS exhibited global flexural buckling contrary to the local buckling of the
experiment. It is assumed that the inability of the finite element model to accurately predict
the collapse behaviour can be rectified by modelling the actual initial imperfection instead
of elastic buckling mode shapes used in the research. Also, the experiment observed
significant variation in the behaviour of FE model with different initial imperfections.
Moreover, the effects of residual stresses and cold-work of forming was also ignored in the
FE model which had its own impacts in the accurate predictions.

Chapter 5 highlights and discusses the detailed parametric study performed on the validated
models which provided insight into the influence of section geometries on both the ultimate
capacity and collapse behaviour. Important conclusions regarding the behaviour of cold-
formed steel columns were:

Ultimate strength improved with the increase in flange width as well as web height,
although effective area was affected. However, the increase in the web height
showed decrease in the strength beyond a point. Furthermore, while the increase in
web height triggered local buckling increase in flange brought distortional buckling.
Increasing the thickness can provide sections with the same capacity of a thinner
section by ensuring an astonishing 40% reduction in the area of the section. The
ultimate capacity is controlled to a large extend with increase in the thickness by
providing higher stiffness against distortional buckling.
Increasing lip length effectively improves the capacity of section by ensuring local
buckling in the flanges. The effective area increased with the lip length until after a
point effective area v/s lip length curve showed saturation, where distortional
buckling mode was observed to be negligible.
The effects of overall buckling can be minimised by increasing flange/web ratio.
However, the increase in length invokes overall buckling.

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Chapter 6 discusses and compares the numerical results with the results calculated based on
Eurocode 3 provisions and, hence, makes an assessment of the reliability of Eurocode 3
recommendations on cold-formed steel design. The comparison of the finite element results
with the design rule (EN 1993-1-5 (2006)) found that the recommendations provided failed
to exactly represent the pronounced instabilities concerning the cold-formed steel design.
The following conclusions can be summarised from the comparison:

The trend of ultimate capacity variation, provided by design rule, with the flange
width was entirely different from the one traced by finite element analysis. The
error kept on increasing from +21.5% to -35.6% with the increase in flange width.
Contrary to the case with flange width variation, increase in thickness showed a
trend of ultimate capacity in much closer resemblance with the FE analysis.
Unfortunately, even in this case ultimate capacity tend to deviate from -4.4% (at
t=1mm) to +19.1% (at t = 3mm).
The greatest error was observed at smaller lip length, d = 10mm, which showed a
deviation of +93.1%.
The cases with distortional buckling as the prevalent mode of failure exhibited the
maximum deviation from the FE analysis.

7.3 FUTURE WORKS

The experiment upon which the finite element models were based was limited to the study
of local buckling. Moreover, many samples of same section profile behaved differently with
each other making it difficult to validate and understand the true and accurate behaviour of
those samples. The reliable samples in the experiment were too limited for the finite element
models to predict and understand the behaviour with better accuracy and reliability.

Cold-formed steel is not only subjected to local and distortional buckling, but also to global
flexural and global flexural-torsional buckling. Further experimental researches must be
carried out to increase the reliability of experiment and also to include more extensive
researches that also include the global buckling effects. Besides this, interaction of failure
modes with each other also needs due consideration to accurately understand the behaviour
of axially compressed cold-formed steel columns. Performing finite element model
validation for a wider reach of experimental samples that includes all the aforementioned
buckling instabilities can produce finite element models with better accuracy and reliability.

120 | P a g e
The collapse behaviour of the cold-formed steel is greatly influenced by the mechanical
properties of the steel. The manufacturing process that includes coiling, uncoiling, cold-
forming etc. leads to locking up of initial stress and strains in the section. Modelling the
effects of residual stresses and cold-work of forming (due to which apparent yield stress in
the corners is increased) provides one of the most robust path towards the understanding of
collapse behaviour of cold-formed steel members.

FEM results are highly sensitive to initial imperfections of the cold-formed steel members.
When the imperfections are not modelled as physical reality it is common for the FEM to
provide imperfection sensitivities that are not observed in the tests and, therefore, failing to
predict the exact collapse behaviour. Researches into creating finite element models by
seeding those accurately assessed imperfection sensitivity must be carried out in the area of
cold-formed steel modelling.

The current research indicated the inaccuracy of EC3 recommendations in predicting the
distortional buckling mode. Further researches must be recommended into the investigation
of distortional buckling prediction. A reassessment of the current design rules in predicting
the distortional buckling failure must be done to derive improved formulations. Also
interaction between different modes must be investigated to better understand the failure
mechanism of cold-formed steel structures.

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section columns Thin-Walled Structures, Vol. 17, No.1, pp. 45-63.

Rhodes, J., and Harvey, JM (1977). Interaction behaviour of plain channel columns under
concentric or eccentric loading, Proceedings of 2nd International Colloquium on the
Stability of Steel Structures, ECCS, Liege, Belgium, pp. 439-444

Rossi, B, Jaspart, JP and Rasmussen, KJR (2010), Combined Distortional and Overall
Flexural-Torsional Buckling of Cold-Formed Stainless Steel Sections: Design, Journal of
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Rossi, B, Jaspart, JP and Rasmussen, KJR (2010), Combined Distortional and Overall
Flexural-Torsional Buckling of Cold-Formed Stainless Steel Sections: Experimental
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February, pp. 118-127

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APPENDIX A- Experimental Results

Table A1: Summary of mean dimensions (Green, 2014)

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APPENDIX B- Numerical Analysis Results

Numerical Results for different web heights and flange widths

WEB = 76.2mm, Lip = 20mm, Length = 500mm & thickness = 1.0mm

Elastic Collapse
Flange load load Area Aaeff,num Abeff,calc Aceff,num Adeff,calc
(mm) (kN) (kN) (mm2) (mm2) (mm2) (%) (%)
50 33.83 45.46 200.20 0.91 110.51 126.38 55.20 63.13
80 35.61 52.62 276.20 0.98 119.52 112.73 43.27 40.81
110 25.40 60.40 336.20 0.99 135.19 107.36 40.21 31.93
150 17.62 62.37 416.20 0.99 139.34 102.56 33.48 24.64
180 14.33 63.23 476.20 1.00 141.13 99.98 29.64 21.00
200 13.02 61.75 516.20 1.00 137.76 98.58 26.69 19.10
225 11.34 62.79 566.20 1.00 140.01 97.10 24.73 17.15
260 9.82 65.95 636.20 1.00 146.98 95.40 23.10 15.00
300 8.89 65.40 716.20 1.00 145.68 93.84 20.34 13.10
310 8.74 65.38 736.20 1.00 145.62 93.50 19.78 12.70
WEB = 152.4mm, Lip = 20mm, Length = 500mm & thickness = 1.0mm
50 13.87 53.40 292.40 0.91 130.66 122.45 44.69 41.88
80 16.01 56.60 352.40 0.98 128.57 111.96 36.48 31.77
110 18.00 60.21 412.20 1.00 133.80 107.51 32.46 26.08
150 17.76 64.16 492.40 1.00 142.58 103.39 28.96 21.00
180 15.64 67.07 552.40 1.00 149.04 101.14 26.98 18.31
200 14.04 66.67 592.40 1.00 148.16 99.90 25.01 16.86
225 12.27 70.17 642.40 1.00 155.92 98.58 24.27 15.35
260 10.66 71.52 712.40 1.00 158.93 97.05 22.31 13.62
300 9.62 70.76 792.40 1.00 157.24 95.63 19.84 12.07
310 9.50 66.12 812.40 1.00 146.93 95.31 18.09 11.73
WEB = 228.6mm, Lip = 20mm, Length = 500mm & thickness = 1.0mm
50 8.52 49.50 368.60 0.90 122.69 118.44 33.29 32.13
80 9.64 56.34 428.60 0.97 128.53 110.70 29.99 25.83
110 10.04 57.89 488.60 1.00 128.64 106.77 26.33 21.85
150 11.80 61.61 568.60 1.00 136.91 103.07 24.08 18.13
180 12.41 64.45 628.60 1.00 143.22 101.02 22.78 16.07
200 12.52 65.50 668.60 1.00 145.56 99.89 21.77 14.94
225 12.19 66.81 718.60 1.00 148.47 98.67 20.66 13.73
260 11.26 68.52 788.60 1.00 152.27 97.25 19.31 12.33
300 10.38 71.80 868.60 1.00 159.56 95.93 18.37 11.04
310 10.21 68.64 888.60 1.00 152.53 95.64 17.17 10.76
a- Effective area computed from FE analysis
b- Effective area computed using EC3 recommendations
c- Effective area computed from FE analysis in terms of percentage of overall area
d- Effective area computed using EC3 recommendations in terms of percentage of overall area

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 WEB = 304.8mm, Lip = 20mm, Length = 500mm & thickness = 1.0mm
Elastic Collapse
Flange load load Area Aeff,num Aeff,calc Aeff,num Aeff,calc
(mm) (kN) (kN) (mm )2 (mm ) 2 (mm ) 2 (%) (%)
50 6.18 47.91 444.80 0.88 120.48 114.86 27.09 25.82
80 6.79 53.50 504.80 0.97 122.72 109.58 24.31 21.71
110 7.43 56.10 564.80 1.00 124.67 106.01 22.07 18.77
150 8.30 60.30 644.60 1.00 134.00 102.60 20.79 15.92
180 8.95 61.99 704.80 1.00 137.75 100.69 19.54 14.29
200 9.36 62.63 744.80 1.00 139.18 99.63 18.69 13.38
225 9.87 66.81 794.80 1.00 148.47 98.49 18.68 12.39
260 10.40 68.52 864.80 1.00 152.27 97.16 17.61 11.24
300 10.26 70.84 944.80 1.00 157.42 95.91 16.66 10.15
310 10.03 71.14 964.80 1.00 158.09 95.64 16.39 9.91

Numerical Results for different thickness and flange widths

thickness = 1mm,Web = 152.4mm & Lip = 20mm

Elastic
Flange load Collapse load Area Aeff,num Aeff,num
(mm) (kN) (kN) 2
(mm ) (mm2) (%)
50.00 13.87 53.40 292.40 0.91 130.66 44.69
80.00 16.01 56.60 352.40 0.98 128.57 36.48
110.00 18.00 60.21 412.40 1.00 133.80 32.44
150.00 17.76 64.16 492.40 1.00 142.58 28.96
180.00 15.64 67.07 552.40 1.00 149.04 26.98
200.00 14.04 66.67 592.40 1.00 148.16 25.01
225.00 12.27 70.17 642.40 1.00 155.92 24.27
260.00 10.66 71.52 712.40 1.00 158.93 22.31
300.00 9.62 70.76 792.40 1.00 157.24 19.84
310.00 9.50 66.12 812.40 1.00 146.93 18.09
thickness = 1.2mm,Web = 152.4mm & Lip = 20mm
50.00 23.94 71.25 350.88 0.91 241.97 55.17
80.00 27.65 78.01 422.88 0.98 261.51 49.47
110.00 31.08 82.46 494.88 1.00 265.98 43.00
150.00 30.64 88.59 590.88 1.00 286.04 38.73
180.00 26.97 92.96 662.88 1.00 296.38 35.77
200.00 24.21 62.02 710.88 1.00 310.49 34.94
225.00 21.17 98.58 770.88 1.00 311.33 32.31
260.00 18.39 99.72 854.88 1.00 309.71 28.98
300.00 16.62 98.61 950.88 1.00 307.64 25.88

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 310.00 16.38 87.10 974.88 1.00 269.91 22.15
thickness = 1.5mm,Web = 152.4mm & Lip = 20mm
Elastic
Flange load Collapse load Area Aeff,num Aeff,num
(mm) (kN) (kN) (mm2) (mm2) (%)
50.00 46.64 98.89 438.60 0.91 241.97 55.17
80.00 53.92 115.12 528.60 0.98 261.51 49.47
110.00 60.61 119.69 618.60 1.00 265.98 43.00
150.00 59.65 128.72 738.60 1.00 286.04 38.73
180.00 52.50 133.37 828.60 1.00 296.38 35.77
200.00 47.12 139.72 888.60 1.00 310.49 34.94
225.00 41.23 140.10 963.60 1.00 311.33 32.31
260.00 35.84 139.37 1068.60 1.00 309.71 28.98
300.00 32.41 138.44 1188.60 1.00 307.64 25.88
310.00 31.93 121.46 1218.60 1.00 269.91 22.15
thickness = 2.0mm,Web = 152.4mm & Lip = 20mm
50.00 109.98 148.82 584.80 0.91 364.13 62.27
80.00 127.40 185.35 704.80 0.98 421.04 59.74
110.00 143.17 199.64 824.80 1.00 443.64 53.79
150.00 140.38 205.36 984.80 1.00 456.36 46.34
180.00 123.50 200.00 1104.80 1.00 444.44 40.23
200.00 110.80 210.41 1184.80 1.00 467.58 39.46
225.00 97.10 211.33 1284.80 1.00 469.62 36.55
260.00 84.58 211.57 1424.80 1.00 470.16 33.00
300.00 76.58 211.59 1584.80 1.00 470.20 29.67
310.00 75.38 188.54 1624.80 1.00 418.98 25.79
thickness = 2.5mm,Web = 152.4mm & Lip = 20mm
50.00 213.30 205.03 731.00 0.91 501.64 68.62
80.00 247.83 259.85 881.00 0.98 590.27 67.00
110.00 278.10 291.95 1031.00 1.00 648.78 62.93
150.00 271.50 285.55 1231.00 1.00 634.56 51.55
180.00 238.70 284.57 1381.00 1.00 632.38 45.79
200.00 214.22 291.17 1481.00 1.00 647.04 43.69
225.00 188.11 292.87 1606.00 1.00 650.82 40.52
260.00 164.24 294.66 1781.00 1.00 654.80 36.77
300.00 148.97 296.51 1981.00 1.00 658.91 33.26
310.00 146.41 304.56 2031.00 1.00 676.80 33.32
thickness = 3.0mm,Web = 152.4mm & Lip = 20mm
50.00 365.38 267.20 877.20 0.91 653.72 74.52
80.00 426.10 339.68 1057.20 0.98 771.60 72.99
110.00 477.10 392.46 1237.20 1.00 872.13 70.49
150.00 462.83 366.46 1477.20 1.00 814.36 55.13
180.00 406.63 368.68 1657.20 1.00 819.29 49.44
200.00 365.52 381.91 1777.20 1.00 848.69 47.75
225.00 321.84 384.78 1927.20 1.00 855.07 44.37

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 260.00 281.81 388.59 2137.20 1.00 863.53 40.40
300.00 256.16 393.64 2377.20 1.00 874.76 36.80
310.00 247.45 404.76 2437.20 1.00 899.47 36.91

Numerical results for different thickness and web height

thickness = 1.0mm,Flange = 110mm & Lip = 20mm

Elastic
Web load Collapse load Area Aeff,num Aeff,num
(mm) (kN) (kN) (mm )2 (mm2) (%)
76.20 25.40 60.40 336.20 0.99 135.19 40.21
152.40 18.00 60.21 412.40 1.00 133.80 32.44
228.60 10.64 57.89 488.60 1.00 128.64 26.33
304.80 7.43 56.10 564.80 1.00 124.67 22.07
thickness = 1.2mm,Flange = 110mm & Lip = 20mm
76.20 43.80 81.90 403.44 0.99 183.32 45.44
152.40 31.08 82.46 494.88 1.00 183.24 37.03
228.60 18.38 81.42 586.32 1.00 180.93 30.86
304.80 12.83 80.33 677.76 1.00 178.51 26.34
thickness = 1.5mm,Flange = 110mm & Lip = 20mm
76.20 85.23 117.50 504.30 0.99 263.00 52.15
152.40 60.61 119.69 618.60 1.00 265.98 43.00
228.60 35.85 122.10 732.90 1.00 271.33 37.02
304.80 25.04 123.64 847.20 1.00 274.76 32.43
thickness = 2.0mm,Flange = 110mm & Lip = 20mm
76.20 200.27 173.31 672.40 0.99 387.92 57.69
152.40 143.17 199.64 824.80 1.00 443.64 53.79
228.60 84.76 207.72 977.20 1.00 461.60 47.24
304.80 59.28 211.54 1129.60 1.00 470.09 41.62
thickness = 2.5mm,Flange = 110mm & Lip = 20mm
76.20 386.40 239.20 840.50 0.99 535.39 63.70
152.40 278.10 291.95 1031.00 1.00 648.78 62.93
228.60 164.98 314.28 1221.50 1.00 698.40 57.18
304.80 115.56 310.37 1412.00 1.00 689.71 48.85
thickness = 3.0mm,Flange = 110mm & Lip = 20mm
76.20 657.13 309.83 1008.60 0.99 693.48 68.76
152.40 477.10 392.46 1237.20 1.00 872.13 70.49
228.60 283.90 418.62 1465.80 1.00 930.27 63.46
304.80 199.23 413.69 1694.40 1.00 919.31 54.26

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Numerical results for different lengths with a constant section

Web= 152.4mm, flange= 110mm, lip= 20mm & thickness = 1.5mm

Length Elastic load Collapse load Aeff,num Aeff,num

(mm) (kN) (kN) (mm2) (%)
500.00 60.61 119.69 1.00 265.98 43.00
600.00 59.32 121.58 0.99 272.47 44.05
800.00 58.27 119.77 0.95 278.72 45.06
1000.00 58.31 118.50 0.92 286.91 46.38
1200.00 58.01 115.73 0.88 292.35 47.26
1500.00 58.50 118.25 0.82 320.62 51.83
1700.00 58.41 116.69 0.78 333.58 53.93
2000.00 58.30 113.82 0.71 355.66 57.49
2500.00 59.94 112.98 0.60 419.51 67.82
3000.00 62.43 69.70 0.49 313.83 50.73

Numerical results for lip lengths with other section parameters

Web= 152.4mm, flange= 110mm, thickness = 1.5mm & length =

1000mm
Elastic
Lip load Collapse load Aeff,num Aeff,num
(mm) (kN) (kN) (mm ) 2 (%)
0 16.50 29.91 0.89 74.54 13.61
10 53.44 47.80 0.91 117.02 20.25
20 58.31 118.50 0.92 286.88 47.20
30 64.50 124.67 0.92 299.58 46.97
40 70.91 130.58 0.93 312.17 46.75
50 69.59 137.74 0.93 328.08 47.02

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APPENDIX C- EC3 Recommendation Calculations
Hand calculation results for different web heights and different flange widths

Web(mm) 76.2 152.4

Flange Collapse load Aeff,calc Collapse load Aeff,calc
(mm) (kN) (%) (kN) (%)
50.00 55.22 58.46 0.97 54.21 41.88 0.98
80.00 50.73 40.81 1.00 50.38 31.77 1.00
110.00 48.31 31.93 1.00 48.38 26.07 1.00
150.00 46.15 24.64 1.00 46.53 21.00 1.00
180.00 44.99 21.00 1.00 45.51 18.31 1.00
200.00 44.36 19.10 1.00 44.96 16.86 1.00
225.00 43.70 17.15 1.00 44.36 15.35 1.00
260.00 42.93 15.00 1.00 43.67 13.62 1.00
300.00 42.23 13.10 1.00 43.03 12.07 1.00
310.00 42.07 12.70 1.00 42.89 11.73 1.00

Web(mm) 228.60 304.80

Flange Collapse load Aeff,calc Collapse load Aeff,calc
(mm) (kN) (%) (kN) (%)
50.00 52.78 32.13 0.99 51.39 25.82 0.99
80.00 49.81 25.83 1.00 49.31 21.71 1.00
110.00 48.05 21.85 1.00 47.70 18.77 1.00
150.00 46.38 18.13 1.00 46.17 15.91 1.00
180.00 45.46 16.07 1.00 45.31 14.29 1.00
200.00 44.95 14.94 1.00 44.84 13.38 1.00
225.00 44.40 13.73 1.00 44.32 12.39 1.00
260.00 43.76 12.33 1.00 43.72 11.24 1.00
300.00 43.17 11.04 1.00 43.16 10.15 1.00
310.00 43.04 10.76 1.00 43.04 9.91 1.00

Hand calculation results for different thickness and different flange widths

Thickness
(mm) 1 1.2
Flange Collapse load Aeff,calc Collapse load Aeff,calc
(mm) (kN) (%) (kN) (%)
50.00 54.21 41.88 0.98 75.39 48.89 0.98
80.00 50.38 31.77 1.00 70.93 37.27 1.00
110.00 48.38 26.07 1.00 68.48 30.75 1.00
150.00 46.53 21.00 1.00 66.13 24.87 1.00
180.00 45.51 18.31 1.00 64.80 21.72 1.00
200.00 44.96 16.86 1.00 64.07 20.03 1.00

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 225.00 44.36 15.35 1.00 63.28 18.24 1.00
260.00 43.67 13.62 1.00 62.36 16.21 1.00
300.00 43.03 12.07 1.00 61.50 14.37 1.00
310.00 42.89 11.73 1.00 61.31 13.97 1.00

Thickness
(mm) 1.5 2
Flange Collapse load Aeff,calc Collapse load Aeff,calc
(mm) (kN) (%) (kN) (%)
50.00 111.12 58.16 0.97 173.52 68.78 0.96
80.00 107.29 45.10 1.00 185.82 58.59 1.00
110.00 104.42 37.51 1.00 178.39 48.06 1.00
150.00 101.39 30.51 1.00 174.77 39.44 1.00
180.00 99.62 26.72 1.00 172.41 34.68 1.00
200.00 98.62 24.66 1.00 171.02 32.08 1.00
225.00 97.53 22.49 1.00 169.45 29.31 1.00
260.00 96.23 20.01 1.00 167.54 26.13 1.00
300.00 95.01 17.76 1.00 165.70 23.23 1.00
310.00 94.74 17.28 1.00 165.28 22.61 1.00

Thickness
(mm) 2.5 3
Flange Collapse load Aeff,calc Collapse load Aeff,calc
(mm) (kN) (%) (kN) (%)
50.00 237.81 75.87 0.95 306.98 82.04 0.95
80.00 276.37 69.78 1.00 368.26 77.80 1.00
110.00 267.71 57.70 1.00 375.33 67.42 1.00
150.00 264.64 47.77 1.00 368.91 55.50 1.00
180.00 262.10 42.18 1.00 366.87 49.19 1.00
200.00 260.49 39.09 1.00 365.33 45.68 1.00
225.00 258.60 35.78 1.00 363.39 41.90 1.00
260.00 256.20 31.97 1.00 360.76 37.51 1.00
300.00 253.80 28.47 1.00 357.99 33.46 1.00
310.00 253.25 27.71 1.00 357.33 32.58 1.00

Hand calculation results for different thickness and different web heights

Thickness
(mm) 1 1.2
Web Collapse load Aeff,calc Collapse load Aeff,calc
(mm) (kN) (%) (kN) (%)
76.20 48.31 31.93 1.00 68.04 37.48 1.00
152.40 48.38 26.07 1.00 68.48 30.75 1.00

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 228.60 48.05 21.85 1.00 68.13 25.82 1.00
304.80 47.70 18.77 1.00 67.70 22.20 1.00

Thickness
(mm) 1.5 2
Web Collapse load Aeff,calc Collapse load Aeff,calc
(mm) (kN) (%) (kN) (%)
76.20 102.94 45.36 1.00 173.49 57.34 1.00
152.40 104.42 37.51 1.00 178.39 48.06 1.00
228.60 104.14 31.58 1.00 178.67 40.63 1.00
304.80 103.63 27.18 1.00 178.15 35.05 1.00

Thickness
(mm) 2.5 3
Web Collapse load Aeff,calc Collapse load Aeff,calc
(mm) (kN) (%) (kN) (%)
76.20 261.06 69.02 1.00 355.06 78.23 1.00
152.40 267.71 57.70 1.00 375.33 67.42 1.00
228.60 269.30 48.99 1.00 372.14 56.42 1.00
304.80 269.06 42.35 1.00 370.72 48.62 1.00

Hand calculation results for different lengths and constant section

Web= 152.4mm, flange= 110mm, lip= 20mm &

thickness = 1.5mm
Length Collapse load Aeff,calc
(mm) (kN) (%)
500.00 104.42 37.51 1.00
600.00 104.42 37.51 1.00
800.00 104.42 37.51 1.00
1000.00 103.64 37.51 0.99
1200.00 101.99 37.51 0.98
1500.00 99.45 37.51 0.95
1700.00 97.69 37.51 0.94
2000.00 94.92 37.51 0.91
2500.00 89.82 37.51 0.86
3000.00 83.97 37.51 0.80

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Hand calculation results for lip lengths with other section parameters

Web= 152.4mm, flange= 110mm, thickness =

1.5mm & length = 1000mm
Lip Collapse load Aeff,calc
(mm) (kN) (%)
0 35.26 14.31 1.00
10 92.29 35.85 0.99
20 103.56 38.17 0.99
30 114.73 40.27 0.99
40 128.66 43.15 0.99
50 143.47 46.10 0.99

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APPENDIX D- VISUAL BASIC MACROS
VB macros have been employed for the hand calculation of around 140 different set of data.
In this appendix, a few of the significant VB macros are displayed.
(a) Iteration of reduction factor (d)

Figure D1: Screenshot of the VB macros for d iteration

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(b) Hand calculation for effect of web height and flange width

Figure D2: Screenshot of VB macros to study effect of web height and flange width
(c) Hand calculation for effect of thickness and flange width

Figure D3: Screenshot of VB macros to study effect of thickness and flange width
The format of VB macros in each case of the parametric study are similar. All the macros
involved in the hand calculation can be found in the CD attached.

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APPENDIX E- CD
The attached CD contains all the FE models that were created for the validation against the
experiment and also the FE models employed for the parametric study. Besides this, the files
of CUFSM analysis is also included. Finally, the excel spreadsheets that includes the results
of finite element analysis and the associated VB macros have also been included.

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