Analysis and design reliability of axially compressed members with high-strength cold-formed thin-walled steel

High-strength cold-formed thin-walled steel has been widely used in developed countries in the last several years. However, the application and popularization of the new materials in China is still very limited, and there are no related provisions in current design codes for reference in engineering practice. In this paper, considering the effects of the variations from material strength in structural members, geometrical parameters of sections, analysis methods for limit load-carrying capacity and external loadings, the second-order moment probability method was used for conducting the design reliability analysis of 550 MPa high-strength cold-formed thin-walled steel structures, from which the reasonable target reliability index, the corresponding resistance partial coefficient and the design strength values were discussed and proposed. Existing experimental data related have been collected and used to demonstrate the suitability and reasonability of the proposed results, which shows that, with reasonable determination of the design strength value of 550 MPa high-strength cold-formed thin-walled steel sections, the effective width-to-thickness ratio method considering coupling stability of plates recommended by “Technical Code of Cold-formed Thin-Walled Steel Structures (GB50018-2002)” can be efficiently used to estimate the load-carrying capacities of the axially compressed elements of high-strength cold-formed thin-walled steel structures, and well satisfy the target reliability index in structural design.