Local Buckling Tests of Cold-formed Steel Compression Members at Elevated Temperatures

A series of local buckling tests of light gauge cold-formed steel columns was conducted at ambient and elevated temperatures up to 700oC to fully understand their local buckling behaviour under fire conditions. Current design standards do not provide clear guidelines for cold-formed steel structural members under fire conditions. Although Eurocode 3 Part 1.2 provides some guidelines for local buckling, other imposed limitations may lead to uneconomical designs. Some designers use the design guidelines developed for ambient temperature conditions to calculate the local buckling capacities at elevated temperatures by simply using the reduced mechanical properties. This paper presents the details of local buckling tests and reviews the accuracy of different design methods for estimating the local buckling capacities of cold-formed steel compression members at elevated temperatures.