NUMERICAL INVESTIGATION OF THE EFFICIENT USE OF STIFFENERS IN COLD-FORMED CHANNELS SUBJECTED TO BENDING

Abstract

This paper presents a numerical study to identify the geometrical dimension ratios of the section that make introducing stiffeners to the cold-formed channel sections, subjected to bending, most effective. A V-shape stiffener was introduced to the web and/or the lipped flanges of such sections. A series of nonlinear finite element models has been carried out to investigate the flexural behaviour of the stiffened beam sections. The study shows that introducing stiffener to the web of channel is more effective than if it is used in the compression flange, in terms of increasing the flexural strength and delaying of local and distortional buckling failure modes. However, such effectiveness is not absolute, but it is highly dependent on the geometric properties of the section such as; flange breadth to web height ratio (bf/hw) and web height to its thickness ratio (hw/t). Indeed, considering this finding would help in economic design of such sections and optimal use of material. Keywords: Cold-formed section; Stiffeners; Finite element analyses; bending.

Keywords

• cold-formed section
• stiffeners
• finite element analyses
• bending