EXPERIMENTAL STUDY AND LOAD-CARRYING CAPACITY ANALYSIS OF COLD-FORMED THIN-WALLED STEEL AXIALLY-COMPRESSED RECTANGULAR HOLLOW STEEL COLUMNS

The objected of this paper is to analyze the buckling mode and the calculate method of the ultimate strength of cold-formed thin-walled steel axially-compressed rectangular hollow sections. Compression tests were conducted on 32 short and intermediate length rectangular hollow sections with the thickness being less than 2 mm. Test results have been compared with the theoretical results calculated by GB50018—2002 Technical code of cold-formed thin-wall steel structures and analyzed by Finite Element Method using Abaqus for investigation on the suitable estimation method of load-carrying capacity. The results show that, the local buckling occur easily for these rectangular hollow sections because of the big width-to-thickness ratio for elements, the related provisions in GB50018—2002 Technical code of cold-formed thin-wall steel structures can be reliably used to estimate the load-carrying capacity of cold-formed thin-walled steel axiallycompressed rectangular hollow sections with the thickness being less than 2mm, Finite Element Method using ABAQUS can simulate well the buckling mode and load-carrying capacities of the cold-formed thinwalled rectangular hollow sections.