Compression Strength of Cold-formed Steel Battened Columnswith “C” Stitches

Abstract

Key Words: Cold Formed Steel;Built-up Columns;Compression Strength;Local buckling;Global buckling.

Summary: The main purpose of this research is to investigate the strength of back to back built-up cold-formed steel columns with C intermediate stitches under axial compression.The study accounts for the effect of geometrical imperfection and material nonlinearity.A finite element analysis was conducted on a variety of dimension ranges of columns that have different global and local geometrical properties.The finite element software ANSYS was used in this study for its ability to perform large deflection analysis.Results of the numerical analyses were compared to the estimated values by the ECP and AISI design codes. A correction factor for the code slenderness formula of built-up columns was proposed in this study to account for the flexural strength of the C intermediate connectors.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT First, I would like to express my deepest appreciation and gratitude tomy supervisor, prof. Dr. Sherif Saleh Safar for his guidance, encouragement, and patience throughout the period of this research,and for providing me with the valuable information and knowledge thathad a direct effect on the succeed of reaching the objectives of this research. AlsoI would like to thank the University of Alberta for providing an open source tutorials and tips for the finite element software Ansys which I used in this study. I also would like to thank all thefellow researchers and engineers, whom I used their published studies as a base knowledge in my research, for their dedicated efforts and contributions to the advancement of the field of Structural Engineering. Finally, I want to thank all my family members, friends and colleagues who supported me during the course of this study.