Major‐axis buckling of pin‐ended stainless steel equal‐leg angle section members: FE modelling and design

Abstract

The behaviour and design of cylindrically‐pinned stainless steel equal‐leg angle section members under compression and compression combined with strong‐axis bending are investigated herein. Numerical models are developed by means of shell finite element modelling formulated within ABAQUS and validated against experimental data. A numerical parametric study is then presented considering both hot‐rolled and cold‐formed stainless steel equal‐leg angle section columns alongside beam‐columns with a wide range of cross‐section and member geometries. Finally, new design proposals for pin‐ended stainless steel equal‐leg angle section members under compression and compression plus major‐axis bending are developed and verified against the results of physical experiments and numerical simulations. The proposed design rules are shown to offer substantially more accurate and consistent resistance predictions compared to existing codified design rules.