Eccentric compression tests on high strength duplex stainless steel columns

Attractive appearance, corrosion resistance and ease of maintenance are the obvious reasons for widespread use of stainless steel in a variety of structures, whilst beneficial mechanical properties such as high ductility, better fire resistance and high strength demonstrated by the duplex grades add significant value to the aesthetics of stainless steel. Reliable experimental investigations are a prerequisite to explore the full potential of stainless steel members and to evaluate the performance of the existing design rules. The current paper describes a test program on cold-formed stainless steel SHS columns subjected to eccentric compression to investigate beam-column interaction. Considered cross-sections were produced from high strength duplex stainless steel with the measured yield stress up to 700MPa. Material properties were obtained from the tensile coupons cut from within the cross-sections, whilst initial geometric imperfections were measured at mid-height of each of the pin-ended column specimens. Two different column lengths were considered with varying eccentricity for each specimen. The strength and behaviour of the cold-formed high strength stainless steel beam-columns were investigated.The test resistanceswere compared with those predicted using theAmerican and the Australian/New Zealand design specifications for cold-formed stainless steel structures. It is observed that the code predictions are mostly conservative for stainless steel beam-columns with rooms for improvement in the available design guidance. © 2012 Taylor & Francis Group, London