MAXIMUM STRENGTH OF AXIALLY COMPRESSED BUILT-UP COLD-FORMED STEEL MEMBERS

Building up cold-formed steel members using self-drilling screws is a common method for enhancing their load-carrying capacity. In this paper, we investigate the maximum strength of axially compressed built-up members in both the elastic and elasto-plastic ranges. We conducted axial compression tests and compared the experimental results with predictions from the proposed design equations. Our findings indicate that the maximum strength of a built-up member can be evaluated by adopting the smaller of the elastic flexural buckling stress and the elastic distortional buckling stress as the elastic global buckling stress used to calculate the column slenderness factor.