SHS AND RHS STAINLESS STEEL BEAM-COLUMNS BEHAVIOUR

Abstract

Behaviour of stainless steel square hollow section and rectangular hollow section (SHS and RHS) members loaded by compression and major axis bending is investigated in this research. All of the three main stainless steel groups are considered, namely austenitic, ferritic and duplex. Comprehensive numerical parametric study was conducted by using finite element software Abaqus. Numerical model was validated based on the experimental data. Together 20 experiments were conducted consists of both SHS and RHS specimens. Results of the numerical parametric study provided sufficient amount of data on the basis of which the new interaction factor formulae were developed. The new formulae have no dependency on the material properties and cross-section slenderness and the evaluation of the stainless steel beam-columns design considering the new interaction factor calculation is presented herein.