Capacity of stainless steel lipped C-section stub column under axial compression

• There are two buckling modes for the stainless steel stub column in axial compression.
• The design strengths are clearly lower than the test strengths for the stainless steel stub column.
• The enhanced properties of the corner areas have a significant effect on the capacity.
• The direct strength equation for capacity of stub column in axial compression is fitted.

This paper studies the behavior and capacity of stainless steel lipped C-section stub columns under axial compression. A total of 10 tests were conducted on stub columns to investigate the failure mechanism and mode, the load–displacement curves, the section strain variation and the capacity. A comparison of the test results with code predictions indicates that the design strengths are lower than the experimental strengths and that the deviation between the test and predicted results decreases as the section plate slenderness coefficient increases. A finite element model is built to conduct parametric studies on the influential factors of member strength. Finally, based on the finite element analysis of 98 stub column specimens, a direct strength equation for stainless steel lipped C-section stub columns is proposed.