Resistance of stainless steel CHS columns based on cross-section deformation capacity

A conceptually new structural design approach has recently been proposed by the authors to predict the resistance of stainless steel members subjected to various types of loading with cross-sections formed from thin flat plates including angles, channels, lipped channels, I-sections and rectangular hollow sections (RHS). The proposed method does not follow the traditional cross-section classification approach, which primarily relies on the assumption of a bilinear, elastic–perfectly-plastic material model. Instead, deformation capacity of a cross-section is determined directly from the local buckling characteristics of the constituent plate elements. This is then used to obtain the corresponding local buckling stress utilising an appropriate material model. This basic concept is extended herein to predict compression resistance of stainless steel columns with circular hollow sections (CHS). Available test and finite element (FE) results have been used to develop the basic design equation to predict the compression resistance of cross-sections and to propose column curves to determine flexural buckling resistances. The predicted resistances have been compared to those obtained using the current Eurocode; the predictions are significantly more accurate and more consistent than those given by the existing Eurocode.