Experimental Investigation of Cold-Formed High-Strength Stainless Steel Tubular Members Subjected to Combined Bending and Web Crippling

This paper presents a test program on cold-formed stainless steel tubular sections subjected to combined bending and web crippling. A series of tests was performed on square and rectangular hollow sections fabricated by cold-rolling from high strength material of duplex and high strength austenitic stainless steel sheets. The concentrated load was applied by means of a bearing plate which acted across the full flange width of the section. The flanges of the hollow section specimens were not fastened to the bearing plates during testing. The specimens were tested using the interior-one-flange loading condition specified in the American Specification and Australian/New Zealand Standard (AS/NZS) for cold-formed stainless steel structures. Different specimen lengths were tested to obtain the interaction relationship between moment and concentrated load. The combined bending and web crippling test results were compared with the design strengths obtained using the current American Specification and AS/NZS for cold-formed stainless steel structures. Generally, it is shown that the American Specification and AS/NZS Standard conservatively predicted the strengths of cold-formed high strength stainless steel square and rectangular hollow sections subjected to combined bending and web crippling.