Design of Cold‐Formed Stainless Steel Tubular Members. II: Beams

Abstract

The paper presents tests on square and circular stainless steel tubular beams. An important part of the test program was to quantify the increase in bending strength resulting from cold‐work during the fabrication process. Tension and compression tests on coupons cut from finished tubes were also included in the test program. Stress‐strain curves for shear were obtained using the coupon test results and the concept of affinity factors. A design method is proposed for stainless steel tubular beams. The method incorporates the increase in strength produced by the cold‐rolling process and is validated by comparing it to the test strengths. Design rules are proposed for the bending and shear strengths and for combined bending and shear. The design procedure proposed is an extension of that described in the ASCE