LATERAL-TORSIONAL BUCKLING OF WELDED SLENDER STAINLESS STEEL I BEAMS

Abstract

: The paper is focused on welded slender stainless steel beams subjected to major bending moment. Difference in behaviour of stainless steel and common carbon steel is generally known, but design of stainless steel members is established mainly for hollow sections (CHS, SHS/RHS) as these are typical stainless steel profiles. Currently, open sections are also being used in structures and the design rules for both local buckling of very slender section as well as lateral-torsional buckling curves are based on very limited experimental and numerical research especially cross section Class 4. For this reason, six beams made of two types of stainless steel with different slenderness for lateral-torsional buckling were tested. Additionally, numerical GMNIA models of these beams are successfully validated. A parametric study based on the validated models will be used for development of a new accurate and safe design procedure.