Study of web crippling in ferritic stainless steel cold formed sections

• A new formula for the web crippling resistance of stainless steel sections is proposed.
• The study is based on numerical simulations using finite element program ABAQUS.
• The numerical model was previously validated against experimental results.
• The new equation provides more accurate results than current Eurocode formula.
• Other comparisons with different web crippling Eurocode formulae are also presented.

Cold-formed stainless steel members are widely used due to their high corrosion resistance and high resistance-to-weight ratio but their susceptibility to buckle implies that instability phenomena such as web crippling, where the web locally buckles due to concentrated transverse forces, must be considered. On the other hand, the emergent ferritic stainless steel has very low nickel content and therefore, they are cheaper and relatively price stable compared to austenitics and duplex. Their promising future has aimed to develop efficient design guidance and as a result, a new unified web crippling resistance expression based on numerical simulations and thereafter validated with experimental results has been proposed.