SECTION GUIDE

Part I
Dimensions and Properties I-1 I-121

Part II
Beam Design II-1 - II-145

Part III
Column Design III-1 III-66

Part IV
Connections IV-1 IV-36

Part V
Supplementary Information V-1 V-9

Part VI
Test Procedures VI-1 VI-73
AISI MANUAL

Cold-Formed St eel
Design Manual

2002 EDITION
 The material contained herein has been developed by the American Iron and Steel Institute
Committee on Specifications for the Design of Cold-Formed Steel Structural Members. The
Committee has made a diligent effort to present accurate, reliable, and useful information on
cold-formed steel design. The Committee acknowledges and is grateful for the contributions of
the numerous researchers, engineers, and others who have contributed to the body of
knowledge on the subject.
With anticipated improvements in understanding of the behavior of cold-formed steel and
the continuing development of new technology, this material may eventually become dated. It
is anticipated that AISI will publish updates of this material as new information becomes
available, but this cannot be guaranteed.
The materials set forth herein are for general information only. They are not a substitute for
competent professional advice. Application of this information to a specific project should be
reviewed by a registered professional engineer. Indeed, in most jurisdictions, such review is
required by law. Anyone making use of the information set forth herein does so at their own
risk and assumes any and all resulting liability arising therefrom.

First Printing September, 2003

Produced by Computerized Structural Design, S.C.

Milwaukee Wisconsin

Copyright American Iron and Steel Institute, 2003

Preface i

PREFACE
The 2002 edition of the Cold-Formed Steel Design Manual consists of six Parts. This
information is supplemental to the 2001 edition of the North American Specification for the Design
of Cold -Formed Steel Structural Members. Each part in the Design Manual should be used in
conjunction with the Specification, Commentary and the other parts, where appropriate.

Part I, Dimensions and Properties contains (a) information regarding the availability and
properties of steels referenced in the Specification, (b) tables of section properties (c) formulas
and examples of calculations of section properties.

Part II, Beam Design contains (a) tables and charts to aid in beam design, and (b) beam
design example problems.

Part III, Column Design contains (a) tables to aid in column design, and (b) column design
example problems.

Part IV, Connections contains (a) tables to aid in connection design, and (b) connection
example problems.

Part V, Supplementary Information contains (a) design procedures of specification nature

which are not included in the Specification itself, either because they are infrequently used or are
regarded as too complex for routine design, and (b) other information intended to assist users of
cold-formed steel.

Part VI, Test Procedures contains (a) test methods for cold-formed steel, (b) a bibliography of
other pertinent test methods, and (c) an example problem.

In addition to updating the Manual for conformance with the 2001 edition of the North American
Specification, the following improvements or additions have been made:
Standard studs and tracks produced by members of Steel Stud Manufacturers
Association are included in Parts I through IV.
Four new comprehensive design examples are added,
(a) C-Section with Openings ASD and LRFD in Part II,
(b) Unbraced Equal Leg Angle With Lips Compression in Part III,
(c) I-Section Built-Up from Channels in Part III, and
(d) Bolted Connection with Consideration of Shear Lag in Part IV.
A table of cross references between the Specification provisions and the corresponding
illustrative examples is provided in Part V.
Numerical designations have been added to the titles of test procedures in Part VI.
The following three new test procedures are included in Part VI:
(a) AISI TS-4-02, Standard Test Methods for Determining the Tensile and Shear Strength
of Screws,
(b) AISI TS-6-02, Standard Procedures for Panel and Anchor Structural Tests and
Commentary on the Standard Procedures,
ii Preface

(c) AISI TS-8-02, Base Test Method for Purlins Supporting a Standing Seam Roof
System.

AISI acknowledges the technical information provided by the Steel Deck Institute in the
Steel Deck section Part I, the section geometries provided by the Steel Stud Manufacturers
Association, and the exemplary efforts of Richard C. Kaehler with Computerized Structural
Design, S. C., in developing this Design Manual. Special thanks also go to the members of
the AISI Design Manual Subcommittee:

Paul A. Seaburg, Chairman Robert. E. Brown James K. Crews

Daniel A. Cuoco Edward R. diGirolamo Edward R. Estes, Jr.
Robert S. Glauz Richard B. Haws Richard C. Kaehler
Roger A. LaBoube Jay W. Larson Donald L. Johnson
Melvin R. Loseke Robert L. Madsen Wesley R. Midgley
Thomas M. Murray Joseph N. Nunnery Benjamin W. Schafer
Reinhold Schuster Peter Tian Wei-Wen Yu

American Iron and Steel Institute

September 2003
Dimensions and Properties for use with the 2001 North American Cold-Formed Steel Specification I-1

TABLE OF CONTENTS
PART I
DIMENSIONS AND PROPERTIES
FOR USE WITH THE
2001 EDITION OF THE
NORTH AMERICAN
SPECIFICATION FOR THE DESIGN OF
COLD-FORMED STEEL STRUCTURAL MEMBERS

SECTION 1 - STEELS - AVAILABILITY AND PROPERTIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

1.1 Introduction to Table of Referenced Steels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2 Table of Referenced ASTM Steels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.3 Material Thickness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
SECTION 2 - REPRESENTATIVE COLD FORMED STEEL SECTIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.1 Representative versus Actual Sections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.2 Notes on Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.3 Gross Section Property Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Table I-1 C-Sections With Lips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Table I-2 SSMA Studs - C-Sections With Lips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Table I-3 SSMA Tracks - C-Sections Without Lips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Table I-4 Z-Sections With Lips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Table I-5 Z-Sections Without Lips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Table I-6 Equal Leg Angles With Lips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Table I-7 Equal Leg Angles Without Lips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Table I-8 Hat Sections Without Lips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
2.4 Steel Deck . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
2.4.1 Deck Profiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
2.4.2 Maximum Spans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
2.4.3 Section Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
SECTION 3 - CALCULATION OF SECTION PROPERTIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
3.1 Linear Method for Computing Properties of Formed Sections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
3.2 Properties of Line Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
3.2.1 Straight Line Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
3.2.2 Circular Line Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
3.3 Properties of Sections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3.3.1 Equal Leg Angles (Singly-Symmetric) With and Without Lips . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3.3.2 C-Sections and Hat Sections(Singly-Symmetric) With and Without Lips . . . . 45
3.3.3 I-Sections with Unequal Flanges (Singly-Symmetric) and T-Sections (Singly
Symmetric) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
3.3.4 Z-Sections (Point-Symmetric) With and Without Lips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
3.4 Gross Section Properties - Example Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Example I-1 C-Section With Lips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Example I-2 C-Section Without Lips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Example I-3 Z-Section With Lips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Example I-4 Equal Leg Angle With Lips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Example I-5 Equal Leg Angle Without Lips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
I-2 Dimensions and Properties for use with the 2001 North American Cold-Formed Steel Specification

Example I-6 Hat Section Without Lips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

Example I-7 Wall Panel Section With Intermediate Stiffeners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
3.5 Effective Section Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
3.6 Effective Section Properties - Example Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Example I-8 C-Section With Lips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Example I-9 C-Section Without Lips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Example I-10 Z-Section With Lips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Example I-11 Equal Leg Angle With Lips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Example I-12 Equal Leg Angle Without Lips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Example I-13 Hat Section Without Lips Using Inelastic Reserve Capacity . . . . . . . . 99
Example I-14 Wall Panel Section With Intermediate Stiffeners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
3.7 Effective Section Properties - Special Topics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Example I-15 Strength Increase from Cold Work of Forming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Example I-16 Shear Lag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Example I-17 Flange Curling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121