Tests on high-strength steel hollow sections: a review

Advances in technologies have allowed manufacturers to produce steel plates and sections with strengths of 690 MPa and higher. The use of high-strength steel has the potential for significantly reducing the material costs and the selfweight of structures. High-strength steel hollow sections can be either welded from steel plates or cold-formed from coils. Tests on different built-up high-strength steel hollow sections have been conducted around the globe, including Australia, China, Japan and the USA. The commonly used box-sections were tested; the slenderness limits and member capacities against compression were also studied. To investigate the performance of cold-formed highstrength steel hollow sections, the authors initiated a research programme in Hong Kong, which included both experimental and numerical investigations on cold-formed high-strength steel hollow sections. The sections include square, rectangular and circular hollow sections. Based on the results, recommendations on section slenderness limits and expressions for determining member capacity are proposed in these studies. This paper summarises recent research on high-strength steel hollow sections and also addresses the design recommendations and limits in codes for both built-up and cold-formed high-strength steel hollow sections.