Experimental investigation of cold-formed lean duplex stainless steel beam-columns

• 37 beam-columns on SHS and RHS cold-formed lean duplex stainless steel were tested.
• Lean duplex stainless steel beam-column tests are not available in literature.
• Current specifications do not cover the material of lean duplex stainless steel.
• Predictions from current specifications are compared with test data.
• EC3 predictions are quite conservative for lean duplex stainless steel beam-columns.

This paper describes a test program on cold-formed lean duplex stainless steel members in combined compression and minor axis bending. The test specimens were cold-rolled from flat strips of lean duplex stainless steel grade EN 1.4162. In this study, square and rectangular hollow sections were compressed at different eccentricities, in order to obtain a beam-column interaction curve for each series of tests. Initial overall geometric imperfections of the members were measured prior to testing. The ultimate loads and the failure modes of each specimen were obtained. The observed failure modes include local buckling, flexural buckling and interaction of local and flexural buckling. The test strengths obtained from this study and other available data were compared with the design strengths predicted by the American Specification, Australian/New Zealand Standard and European Code for stainless steel structures. It should be noted that these specifications do not cover the material of lean duplex stainless steel. Therefore, the suitability of the beam-column design rules in these specifications for lean duplex stainless steel is assessed in this study. Generally, these specifications are capable of predicting the beam-column strengths of the lean duplex stainless steel test specimens, and the design rules in the specifications are considered to be reliable. It is observed that the European Code generally provides quite conservative predictions for the beam-column specimens compared to the American Specification and Australian/New Zealand Standard predictions.