Experimental study on innovative sections for cold formed steel beams

Cold Formed Steel members are widely used in today's construction industry. However the structural behavior of light gauge high strength cold formed steel sections characterized by various buckling modes are not yet fully understood. Because of their simple forming and easy connections, the commonly used cold formed sections for beams are C and Z. However both these sections suffer from certain buckling modes. To achieve much improved structural performance of cold formed sections for beams both in terms of strength and stiffness, it is important to either delay or completely eliminate their various modes of buckling. This paper presents various innovative sectional profiles and stiffening arrangements for cold formed steel beams which would successfully contribute in delaying or eliminating various modes of premature buckling, thus considerably improving the load carrying capacity as well as stiffness characteristics of such innovative cold formed sections compared to conventional cold formed steel sections commonly used for beams.