Testing of high strength steel welded thin-walled RHS subjected to combined compression and bending

The paper presents an experimental investigation of the local buckling of high strength steel Q460C, Q550D and Q690D welded thin-walled rectangular hollow sections (RHS) under combined compression and bending. Twenty-two short columns, of which five were fabricated from Q460C, twelve from Q550D and five from Q690D, under eccentric compression were loaded to failure. The local buckling behaviors are examined and the ultimate carrying capacities obtained from the test, as well as the numerical modeling reported in the existing literature, are compared with the results obtained from the American Specification ANSI/AISC 360-16, Eurocodes BS EN 1993 - 1 - 1 and BS EN 1993 - 1 - 5 , Chinese Standard GB 50017-2017 and Australian Standard AS 4100: 2020 to determine whether these technical standards are applicable to the high strength steels with nominal yield stress of 460 MPa, 550 MPa, 690 MPa and 960 MPa. The results indicate that the ANSI/AISC 360-16 generally overestimates the ultimate load carrying capacities and will need to be revised for the high strength steels, and the BS EN 1993-1-1 , BS EN 1993-1-5 and GB 50017-2017 are in excellent agreement with the experimental or numerical results and thus suitable for the high strength steels over the range of the parameters studied herein, and the Australian Standard AS 4100: 2020 is very conservative.