Experimental Study of the Local Stability of Rectangular Aluminum Hollow Sections

This paper investigates the local buckling behavior of rectangular aluminum hollow sections through an experimental program involving three different cross sections. Geometric dimensions and initial geometric imperfections were first precisely measured. Six tensile tests—two for each cross section—were then conducted to characterize the material properties. Additionally, six stub-column tests and 10 short beam-column tests under eccentric compression were performed to analyze the local buckling response of these sections. The experimental results were compared with analytical predictions based on current design standards. The findings reveal that the code predictions are conservative, with margins of 28%, 21%, and 31% for the Canadian code (CSA-S157), the Eurocode (EC9), and the American code [Aluminum Design Manual (ADM)], respectively. Additional comparisons with experimental results from previous studies reinforced this conclusion, highlighting the conservative nature of these standards.