Residual stress distribution of large steel equal leg angles

•Residual stress measurements on new large steel angles.•Presentation of improved sectioning method.•Presentation of new residual stress distribution models.•Buckling curves for large angels calculated by GMNIA with initial residual stress field.

The market offers new large steel angle profiles, the largest being L300/35. To check their buckling resistance, the investigation of the residual stress field is presented in this paper. Since the buckling behaviour of steel angles is significantly affected by the residual stresses, the stresses were measured on six hot rolled and two welded equal angles by sectioning method. The traditional sectioning method was improved by introducing the water jet cutting. The released deformations were measured by the strain gauges. On the basis of the statistical evaluation of the test results, the most appropriate residual stress distribution models were considered in the numerical analysis. The results of the geometrical and material nonlinear numerical analysis were equal angle buckling curves.