Tests of cold-formed stainless steel tubular flexural members

A series of tests on cold-formed stainless steel square and rectangular hollow sections subjected to major axis bending is presented in this paper. The tests were performed on sections fabricated by cold-rolling from normal strength material of austenitic stainless steel type 304, and high strength material of duplex and high strength austenitic steel sheets. Tensile coupon tests were conducted to obtain the material properties of the test specimens. The test strengths were compared with the design strengths obtained using the American Specification and Australian/New Zealand Standard for stainless steel structures. The North American Specification for cold-formed carbon steel structural members was also used to predict and compare the bending strengths. In addition, the test strengths were compared with the theoretical elastic and plastic bending moments. It is shown that the design strengths predicted by the three specifications and the theoretical bending moments are generally conservative for the tested specimens. The reliability analysis was performed to evaluate the reliability of the design rules based on the existing resistance factors and load combination specified in the aforementioned specifications. It is shown that the American Specification and North American Specification are reliable for both normal and high strength specimens. The Australian/New Zealand Standard is reliable for normal strength specimens, but slightly unreliable for high strength specimens.