A study in interactive buckling of a doubly lipped cold-formed channel section

Abstract

Research on the use of cold-formed steel sections has been advancing continually throughout the years. Such development is shifting the use of cold-formed sections from secondary members to primary members in structural systems. This dissertation concerns the behaviour of a doubly lipped channel section subjected to a combination of force actions and the resulting interactive buckling behaviour. This study expands on research carried out by Buhagiar (1993), and considers other load combinations: axial load and major axis bending, minor axis bending and major axis bending. A finite element analysis was carried out on a section of the doubly lipped channel. This dissertation explains how the finite element model and the results obtained were initially correlated to the results obtained by Buhagiar ( 1993 ). This work goes on to detail how other load combinations were applied to the cross-section. The results of the FE analysis were then plotted in the form of a non-dimensional interaction diagram. Finally, the resulting interaction curves were compared to the related equations provided by EN1993-1-3 and EN1991-1-1 respectively.