Element interactions of cold-formed stainless steel cross-sections subjected to combined compression and bending

The investigation indicates that the interaction effects of constituent plate elements on cross-section response are obvious particularly for slender sections. Current design provisions on Class 3 and Class 2 slenderness limits and effective width equations specified in American Specification, EC3 code and proposed by Gardner are not suitable for square and rectangular stainless steel hollow section beam-columns since the interaction effects of constituent plate elements are ignored. The new Class 3 and Class 2 slenderness limits and the section capacity design equations based on the whole cross-section response enable more accurate prediction of local buckling, thus allowing better utilization of material and more economic design.