Inelastic Local Buckling Behaviour of Thin Steel Plates in Profiled Composite Beams

The inelastic local buckling behaviour of cold-formed profiled steel sheets in the compression zone of a profiled composite beam is studied herein. The method considers a profiled composite beam in bending using a modflcation of the semi-analytical inelastic finite strip method. An inelastic constitutive relationship for cold-formed steel is used in the formulation of the clamped strip stiffness and stability matrices. A computer program incorporating material non-linearity has been developed that produces a new form of eigenvalue problem. A parametric study is undertaken for variables that influence the local buckling behaviour. Slenderness limits are derived that can be used for the rigid plastic design of cold-formed steel sheeting in profiled composite beams.

B. Uy and Professor M.A. Bradford