Experimental and numerical investigations of high strength steel welded h-section columns

This paper reports experimental and numerical investigations of high strength steel columns. A series of tests was performed on different geometries of welded H-sections fabricated from high strength steel sheet with a nominal yield stress of 460 MPa. A non-linear finite element model which includes geometric and material non-linearities was developed and verified against experimental results of high strength steel welded H-section columns. The calibrated model was shown to provide accurate predictions of the experimental ultimate loads and failure modes of the test specimens. Therefore, a parametric study was carried out over a range of cross-section geometries and column lengths. The test and numerical results of stub columns obtained in this study were compared with the nominal section capacities. It is shown that the design provisions specified in the European Code, American Specification and Chinese Code on yield slenderness limits are all conservative. The normalized flange and web slenderness limits for fully effective section codified in European Code are very close to those codified in the American Specification, which are more suitable. Furthermore, the test and numerical results of long columns obtained in this study were compared with the nominal member capacities predicted using the European Code, American Specification and Chinese Code for steel structures. It is shown that the European Code provides the best agreement between the test and numerical data with design strength predictions for high strength steel welded H-section long columns.