Numerical investigation and design of thin-walled complex section steel columns

A numerical investigation of thin-walled complex section steel columns with intermediate stiffeners was performed using finite element analysis. An accurate and reliable finite element model was developed and verified against test results. Verification indicates that the model could predict the ultimate strengths and failure modes of the tested columns with reasonable accuracy. Therefore, the developed model was used for the parametric study. In addition, the effect of geometric imperfection on column ultimate strength and the effect of boundary conditions on the elastic distortional buckling of complex section columns were investigated. An equation for the elastic distortional buckling load of fixed-ended columns having different column lengths was proposed. The elastic distortional buckling load obtained from the proposed equation was used in the direct strength method to calculate the column ultimate strength. Generally, it is shown that the proposed design equation conservatively predicted the ultimate strengths of complex section columns with different column lengths.