Behaviour of bolted cold formed steel channel tension members

Cold formed steel channel sections bolted at the end supports are widely used almost in all construction fields to form integral part of structural members. In order to promote the effective utilization of cold formed steel structures,it is important to have a detailed investigation on the behaviour of cold formed steel members. This paper investigates bolted channel members subjected to tension which influences the shear lag effect. The thickness of the cold formed steel sheet was 2mm. Twelve plain channel members with different dimensions are bolted to gusset plate using bolts of 10mm diameter,are tested in an Universal Testing Machine. All the specimens were tested till failure. The ultimate load carried by the specimens were compared with the theoretical load capacity by various codes such as AISI 2007,AS/NZS 4600,BS 5950-part 5 1998 and also with the load carrying capacity predicted by ANSYS.