Proposed residual stress model for roller bent steel wide flange sections

The manufacturing process of structural wide flange steel sections introduces residual stresses in the material. These stresses due to hot-rolling or welding influence the inelastic buckling response of structural steel members and need to be taken into account in the design. Based on experimental data standardized residual stress models have been proposed for inclusion in inelastic buckling analyses. By incorporating these residual stress models their effect on the resistance of beams and columns can be obtained. Residual stress models for roller bent steel sections are currently not available. Roller bent wide flange sections are manufactured by curving straight members at ambient temperature. This manufacturing technique, which is also known as roller bending, stresses the material beyond its yield stress, thereby overriding the initial residual stresses prior to bending and generating an entirely new pattern. This paper proposes a residual stress model for roller bent wide flange sections, based on earlier conducted numerical investigations which were validated by experimental research performed at Eindhoven University of Technology. The proposed residual stress model can serve as an initial state of a roller bent steel section in fully non-linear finite element analyses to accurately predict its influence on the inelastic buckling response.

Research highlights
► A residual stress model for roller bent wide flange steel sections has been proposed.
► The residual stress model is based on numerical computations, conducted with an earlier validated finite element model.
► The residual stress model satisfies the internal equilibrium requirement for bending and compression and agrees well with earlier performed residual stress measurements.
► The proposed model can be implemented in finite element models with beam or shell elements to assess its influence on the inelastic buckling response of steel arches.