A REVIEW

ON BEHAVIOUR OF
THIN WALLED
OPEN COLUMN SECTIONS

Under the guidance of

Dr. P. Manikandan
Asst. Professor

Presented by
Kannan K
(1539102)

Cold formed steel structures:

Cold-formed steel structures are steel structures that are
prepared by bending flat steel sheets into desire shapes,
while hot-rolled steel sections are formed at elevated
temperatures.
The primary advantages of the cold formed steel section
are high strength to weight ratio, low self weight, easy
lifting/ fabrications.
The open column section is very familiar with the
construction industry.
The buckling characteristics depend on the shape and the
slenderness ratio of the cross section profile

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

Yang, D., and Hancock, G.J..

Compression Tests of High Strength Steel Channel
Columns with Interaction between Local and
Distortional Buckling
Journal of Structural Engineering, Vol. 130, No. 12,
2004
Yang and Hancock (2004) describes a series of
compression tests performed on lipped channel section
columns fabricated from cold-reduced high strength steel
of thickness 0.42 mm with nominal yield stress 550 Mpa.
A range of lengths of lipped channels with intermediate
stiffeners in the web and the flanges was tested between
fixed ends to determine the strength of the sections.

 For the lipped channel sections, failure resulted from

local and distortional buckling with the interaction
between these modes.
The tests indicated that distortional buckling and the
interaction of local and distortional buckling may have a
significant effect on the strength of the sections formed
from such thin high strength steel.
The paper presents the results obtained experimentally
and theoretically using the effective width method and the
direct strength method, neither of which account for
interaction of local and distortional buckling.

Liu, Y., Crashworthiness design of multi-corner thinwalled columns Thin-Walled Structures 46 (2008)
1329 1337.
Liu (2008) presents a crashworthiness design of regular
multi-corner thin-walled columns with different types of
cross-sections and different profiles, including straight
octagonal columns and curved hexagonal columns.
In this study, the straight octagonal section columns were
first optimized, which mainly take axial crash loads
during crashes.
Next, the curved hexagonal section columns were
optimized following the same approach, which are
subject to bending moment when impact occurs.

 During the design optimizations, specific energy

absorption was set as the design objective, side length of
the cross-sections and wall thickness was selected as
design variables, and maximum crushing force was set as
the design constraint.
Both the objective and constraint were formulated using
the response surface method based on sets of finite
element results obtained from FE analysis.
After obtaining the optimal designs, parametric studies
were performed to investigate the influences of the design
variables on the crash performance of such multi-corner
thin-walled columns.

Kwon, Y. B., Kim, B.S., and Hancock, G.J., Compression

tests of high strength cold-formed steel channels with
buckling interaction
Journal of Constructional Steel Research
65 (2009) 278_289
Kwon et al (2009) describes a series of compression tests
on cold-formed simple lipped channels and lipped
channels with intermediate stiffeners in the flanges and
web fabricated from high strength steel plate of thickness
0.6 and 0.8 mm with the nominal yield stress 560 MPa.
A range of lengths of lipped channel sections was tested
to failure with both ends of the column fixed with a
special capping to prevent local failure of column ends
and influence from the shift of centroid during testing.

 The high strength cold-formed steel channel sections of

intermediate lengths generally displayed a significant
interaction between local and distortional buckling.
A noticeable interaction between local and overall
buckling was also observed for the long columns.
A significant post-buckling strength reserve was shown
for those sections that showed interaction between local
and distortional or overall buckling.
Simple design strength formulas in the Direct Strength
Method for the thin-walled cold-formed steel sections
failing in the mixed mode of local and distortional
buckling have been studied.
The strengths predicted by the strength formulas
proposed are compared with the test results for
verification.

Nguyen, H.T. and Kim, S.E.,

Buckling of composite columns of lipped-channel and hat
sections with web stiffener
Thin-Walled Structures 47 (2009) 11491160
Nguyen and Kim (2009) studied the buckling of thinwalled composite columns in hat sections and lippedchannel sections reinforce with web stiffener under axial
compression.
The columns were composed of symmetric angle-ply
laminates. The finite element method was used to
investigate the buckling behaviour of the columns.
Bifurcation analyses were carried out to obtain the
buckling load and mode shapes of the columns.

 Load-deflection analyses were performed to study the

post-buckling behaviour of the columns.
The results showed significant effects of ply angle and
geometric parameters on the buckling and post-buckling
behaviour of the columns.
This research provides a guide for improving the loading
capacity of composite columns.

Chen, J., He ,Y., Jin, W.L.,

Stub column tests of thin-walled complex section
with intermediate stiffeners
Thin-Walled Structures 48 (2010) 423429
Chen et al (2010) was conducted a series of stub column
tests on complex sections with intermediate stiffeners.
Initially, geometric imperfections and material properties
of the test specimens were measured.
It was shown that the intermediate stiffeners could
effectively enhance the local buckling stress of thinwalled sections.

 The test strengths were compared with the design

strengths calculated using the direct strength method in
the North American Specification and Australian/New
Zealand Standard for cold- formed steel structures.
It was shown that the direct strength method using the
finite strip method to obtain the buckling stresses was
very conservative.
It was also shown that the design strengths calculated
using the direct strength method based on the buckling
stresses obtained from finite element analysis results
generally agree with the test results well.

Zhang X, Zhang H
Experimental and numerical investigation on crush
resistance of polygonal columns and angle elements
Thin-Walled Structures 57 (2012) 2536
Energy absorption characteristics of regular polygonal
columns and rhombic columns under quasi-static axial
compression were investigated by Zhang and Zhang
(2012).
The influence of a central angle of deformation mode and
mean crushing force of angle elements was studied.
A numerical investigation was also carried out to study
the crush resistance of polygonal columns and angle
elements under quasi- static and dynamic axial
compression.

 The numerical predicted crushing force and deformation

mode of the polygonal columns were found to be in good
agreement with the experimental results.
In addition, based on the experimental observations, some
discussions about the deformation mechanism of energy
absorption were presented.

Lee S H, Choi Y H, Kim Y H, Choi S M

Structural performance of welded built-up square
CFST stub columns
Thin-Walled Structures 52 (2012) 1220
Structural performance of welded built-up square CFST
stub columns was discussed by Lee (2012).
A welded built-up square tube was made by flare welding
4 thin a steel plate, which was bent to form an L - shape.
When it was used for a CFST column, the ribs placed at
the center of concrete and steel tube width prevent local
buckling and the tube confine concrete to improve its
structural load capacity.

 Totally, 15 full-size specimens were tested to verify

sectional efficiency and structural superiority inherent in
welded built-up square columns.
It is concluded that, welded built-up steel tubes are
superior to generic steel tubes with the same width in
terms of cross-sectional efficiency because the total cross
section is an effective sectional area in the former.

Tang Z, Liu S, Zhang Z

Energy absorption properties of non-convex multicorner thin-walled columns
Thin-Walled Structures 51 (2012) 112120

Tang and Zhang (2012) proposed a strategy to improve energy absorption

efficiency of thin-walled columns by introducing extra non-convex corners
in the cross section.
Several profiles of non-convex multi- corner thin-walled columns
obtained through this strategy were presented and their energy absorption
capacities under axial crush were investigated analytically and numerically.
Explicit formulations for predicting the mean crushing force of non-convex
multi-corner thin-walled columns were derived based on the theory of
Super Folding Element method, and predicting the results of these
formulations have good agreement with the numerical simulation
performed by explicit nonlinear finite element method.
The comparisons of the non-convex columns with square column show
that the non-convex multi-corner thin-walled columns have higher energy
absorption capacity.

Patton M L, Singh K D
Buckling of fixed ended lean duplex stainless steel hollow
columns of square, L-, T-,and -shaped sections under pure
axial compressiona finite element study
Thin-Walled Structures 63 (2013) 106116.

Patton and Singh (2013) present a finite element study on

slender hollow columns with square and non-rectangular
hollow columns with fixed ends under axial compression.
Variations in buckling strength with changes in the crosssectional shapes were studied.

 The FE results were compared with the design strengths

predicted by the Euro code and ASCE specifications.
Good agreements between the FE strengths and codal
predictions were observed.
The uses of cold-formed thin-walled steel structures have
increased in recent years, and some built-up section
members are motivated and also widely used for their
excellent structural behaviour.

Aruna G, Sukumar S, Karthika

Study on cold-formed steel built-up square sections
with intermediate flange and web stiffeners
Asian journal of civil engineering
(bhrc) vol. 16, no. 7 (2015)pages 919-931
Aruna et al11 (2015) describes a series of experiments
conducted in cold-formed built-up square sections with
intermediate flange and web stiffeners under axial
compression with hinged end conditions.
The specimens were formed using angle sections with an
edge, intermediate flange and web stiffeners connected
with self- tapping screws.
27 columns were tested by varying the cross sectional
dimensions of the specimen. The column lengths of the
specimens varied from 840 mm to 2240 mm.

 Tensile coupon test were conducted to find the material

properties of the sections.
Local buckling, distortional buckling, flexural buckling and
interaction of these buckling were observed during the test.
The column strengths obtained from the experiments were
compared with the design strength calculated using the direct
strength method (DSM) in the North American Specification
for cold-formed steel structures.
The reliability of the DSM method was evaluated using
reliability analysis. It was shown that, strengths calculated by
using the direct strength method are reliable and slightly
unconservative.
Finally, a design recommendation was proposed for DSM to
calculate the ultimate strength of cold formed built-up square
sections with intermediate flange and web stiffeners.

Zhang J H, Young B
Numerical investigation and design of cold-formed
steel built-up open section columns with longitudinal
stiffeners Thin-Walled Structures 89(2015)178191.
A built-up I-section with longitudinal stiffeners is
expected to have better performance to resist against local
and distortional buckling compared to conventional builtup I-section by simply connecting two plain channels
back-to-back.
Hence Zhang and Young10 (2015) did non-linear finite
element analysis to investigate the behaviour of coldformed steel built-up open section columns with edge and
web stiffeners.

 A finite element model was firstly developed and verified

against the tests of cold-formed steel built-up compression
members, in which the initial geometric imperfections and
material properties of the test specimens were included.
Secondly, the verified finite element model was used for an
extensive parametric study of fixed-ended cold-formed steel
built-up open section columns.
The parametric study was designed to investigate the effect
of edge and web stiffeners in the built-up open sections. The
finite element results together with the test results were
compared with the design predictions calculated from the
current design rules in the North American Specification and
the Australian/New Zealand Standard.

 Furthermore, design rules of the current direct strength

method were modified. It is shown that the design
strengths predicted by the modified direct strength
method are generally in good agreement with the ultimate
loads of the built-up open section columns.
In addition, the current design rules and the modified
direct strength method were evaluated by reliability
analysis

Madeira J F A, Dias J, Nuno Silvestre

Multi objective optimization of cold-formed steel
columns Thin-Walled Structures 96(2015)2938.
Madeira12 (2015) was addressed to maximize the localglobal buckling strength and maximize the distortional
buckling strength of cold-formed steel columns.
The design variables of the problem are the angles of
orientation of cross-section wall elements, the thickness
and width of the steel sheet that forms the cross-section
are fixed.
The elastic local, distortional and global buckling loads
were determined using Finite Strip Method (CUFSM) and
the strength of cold-formed steel columns were calculated
using the Direct Strength Method (DSM).

Wang C, Zhang Z, Zhao D, Bai Y

Experimental and Numerical Study on Perforated
Channel Columns with Complex Edge Stiffeners and
Web Stiffeners
Advances in Structural Engineering Vol. 18 No. 8
2015.
To study the influence of web holes on axial compression
behaviour of thin-walled columns with different section
forms, a total of 10 pin-ended compression specimens
with two section forms were tested by Wang et al13
(2015).
One section is channels with complex edge stiffeners and
web holes, the other section is channels with complex
edge stiffeners and type web stiffeners and web holes.

 The ultimate load, buckling mode and deformation

behaviour of these specimens were studied.
It was found that the axial compression loading efficiency
of perforated -section specimens can increase about 30%
to 50%, which compared with channels with complex edge
stiffeners and web holes under the same conditions.
The tests were simulated by finite element analysis (FEA),
and the analysis results agreed well with experimental
data.
It was shown that the loading efficiency of -section
models with holes decreased about 25% compared with
the same section models without holes.

 While channel section models with complex edge

stiffeners and holes decreased about 6% average.
Furthermore, the direct strength method (DSM) was used
to calculate the ultimate loading capacity of perforated
channels with complex edge stiffeners.
The results indicate that the existing DSM formulas for
perforated members, developed mainly based on channel
sections with simple edge stiffeners, are also valid for
channels with complex edge stiffeners and web holes
under axial compression.

Zhou X, Liu Z, He Z General distortional buckling

formulae for both fixed-ended and pinned-ended Csection columns Thin-Walled Structures
94(2015)603611.
Zhou et al14 (2015) presents general explicit analytical
formulae to provide distortional critical stress estimates
for cold-formed steel C-section columns subjected to
uniform compression.
These formulae were derived by employing the Lau and
Hancock model and by introducing a new factor in
considering the web rotational restraint reduced by web
bending.

 The results obtained from the general explicit analytical

formulae are compared with the numerical results obtained
from the computer programs CUFSM or/and GBTUL.
For pinned-ended columns, these values are also compared
with those yielded by the formulae developed by Lau and
Hancock, Schafer, and Silvestre and Camotim.
In particular, the distortional critical stress of fixed-ended
C-section columns was validated by comparing the
corresponding ultimate load based on Schafers DSM
expressions with numerical results from the research
literature.
The formulae derived here were validated and their
application, accuracy and capabilities are illustrated by
these comparisons and validations.

Wang C, Zhang Z, Zhao D, Liu Q

Compression tests and numerical analysis of webstiffened channels with complex edge stiffeners
Journal of Constructional Steel Research
116 (2016) 2939.
Wang et al15 (2016) conducts a series of pin-ended
compression tests and numerical analysis of channels
with complex edge stiffeners and two different types of
web stiffeners.
In the tests, axial compression and eccentric compression
loading were imposed respectively on 18 and 12
specimens.
The stability capacity, buckling mode and deformation
behavior of these specimens were studied.

 It was found that the longitudinal intermediate stiffeners

could reduce the web width-to-thickness ratio effectively
and enhance the stability capacity of members subjected
to axial loading or eccentric loading with the eccentricity
close to the web side.
Compared with channels with complex edge stiffeners
under the same condition, the ultimate load-carrying
capacity of shape section members and members with
V type web stiffeners was increased by 65% and 50%,
respectively.
But distortional buckling of the complex section member
was the governing failure modes of the specimens. Tests
were then simulated by finite element analysis.

 The numerical analysis results show good agreement with

experimental results.
Furthermore, parametric study on a total of 144 samples
was conducted to obtain the optimal web sub-element
proportion for cross-section columns.

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