Limit Design in Cold‐Formed Steel

Abstract

The inelastic load carrying capacity of cold‐formed steel beams with stiffened compression flanges has been investigated. A failure criterion, based on the ultimate compressive strain, is developed experimentally for beams under uniform moment and moment gradient. An extensive testing program was carried out to study the influence of the flat width‐to‐thickness ratio, the moment gradient, and the support width on the strain capacity of stiffened compression flanges. On the basis of the proposed failure criterion, a semiempirical expression for determining the inelastic rotation component of partial hinges is also developed.