O.I.C.-Based Design of Aluminum Circular Hollow Sections under Compression or Pure Bending

Abstract

This paper investigates the ultimate resistance of aluminum circular hollow sections (C.H.S.) under simple load cases as affected by local buckling and material strain hardening. Following the development of advanced non-linear shell finite element models and their validation against existing test data, extensive non-linear numerical analyses were carried out, varying several key parameters such as alloy types, load case (compression or pure bending) and various section dimensions. The numerical results are used as references to analyze the structural performance of aluminum C.H.S., and to assess the accuracy of design equations based on the Overall Interaction Concept (O.I.C.). The O.I.C.-based proposal is shown to yield more accurate, consistent, and continuous resistance predictions than Eurocode 9 recommendations.

Keywords

• aluminum
• circular hollow sections
• local buckling