Experimental Study on Ultimate Strength of Thin-Walled Square Tube Under Axial Compression

Abstract

There are many welded thin-walled square tube structures in ship structures. At present, researchers are mainly involved in axial compressive ultimate strength of square tubes with large aspect ratios. However, the study of square tubes with small aspect ratios on ultimate strength capacity have seldom been conducted. In order to study the ultimate strength capacity of thin-walled square tubes with small aspect ratio under axial compression, three welded thin-walled square tubes with different slenderness ratios were manufactured and studied in this paper. The ultimate strength of those models under axial compression were obtained experimentally. The experimental results were compared with numerical results performed by ABAQUS. The influence of slenderness ratios on the axial compressive ultimate strength of thin-walled square tubes is analyzed, and a feasible modelling of finite element method is proposed.