GBT-based elastic–plastic post-buckling analysis of stainless steel thin-walled members

• GBT beam finite element formulation to perform inelastic post-buckling analyses of thin-walled members.
• Specialisation for stainless steel thin-walled members, which accounts for strain-hardening.
• Applicable to members exhibiting arbitrary local/distortional/global deformation patterns.
• Numerical results concerning two lean duplex SHS columns presented and discussed in detail.
• Mechanical insight and numerical efficiency provided by the GBT modal nature illustrated.

When compared with carbon steel, stainless steel exhibits a more pronounced non-linearity and no well-defined yield plateau, as well as appealing features such as aesthetics, higher corrosion resistance and lower life cycle cost. Due to its considerably high ductility/strength and cost, stainless steel structural solutions tend to be adopted mostly for slender/light structures, thus rendering the assessment of their structural behaviour rather complex, chiefly because of the high susceptibility to instability phenomena. The first objective of this paper is to present the main concepts and procedures involved in the development of a geometrically and materially non-linear Generalised Beam Theory (GBT) formulation and numerical implementation (code), intended to analyse the behaviour and collapse of thin-walled members made of materials with a highly non-linear stress–strain curve (e.g., stainless steel or aluminium). The second objective is to validate and illustrate the application of the proposed GBT formulation, by comparing its results (equilibrium paths, ultimate loads, deformed configurations, displacement profiles and stress distributions) with those provided by shell finite element analyses of two lean duplex square hollow section (SHS) columns previously investigated, both experimentally and numerically, by Theofanous and Gardner (Eng Struct 2009; 31(12): 3047–3058.). The stainless steel material behaviour is modelled as non-linear isotropic and the GBT analysis includes initial geometrical imperfections, but neglects corner strength enhancements and membrane residual stresses. It is shown that the GBT unique modal nature makes it possible to acquire in-depth knowledge concerning the mechanics of the column behaviour, by providing “structural x-rays” of the (elastic or elastic–plastic) equilibrium configurations: modal participation diagrams showing the quantitative contributions of the global, local, warping shear and transverse extension deformation modes - moreover, this feature makes it possible to exclude, from future similar GBT analyses, those deformation modes found to play a negligible role in the mechanics of the behaviour under scrutiny, thus further reducing the number of degrees of freedom involved in a GBT analysis, i.e., increasing its computational efficiency.