Inelastic Bending Capacity in Cold-Formed Steel Members.pdfVIP

Published in Annual SSRC Stability Conference 2007 Inelastic Bending Capacity in Cold-Formed Steel Members 1 2 Y. Shifferaw , B.W. Schafer ABSTRACT Inelastic bending capacity exists in cold-formed steel beams, despite their fundamentally thin-walled nature. In this paper a simple design procedure to account for this increased bending capacity is proposed as an extension to the Direct Strength Method of cold-formed steel member design. Using an experimental test database of over 500 flexural tests on cold-formed steel beams approximately 100 tests are found where the bending capacity reaches 95%My or greater including observations as high as 118%M , where M is the moment at first yield. y y Using elementary beam mechanics, and assuming elastic-perfectly plastic material, the inelastic compressive strain at failure is back- calculated for the tested members. The tested members are augmented by a detailed finite element study of inelastic local and distortional buckling and the inelastic strains as well as the peak moments sustained are examined. The models demonstrate the limitations of the elementary mechanics model which can predict average membrane strains in the compressive flange reasonably well, but maximum membrane strains and surface strains are significantly larger. Simple relationships between local and distortional cross-section slenderness to predict average inelastic strain demands and a relationship between average strain demand and inelastic bending streng