NONLINEAR FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSIS OF COLD-FORMED STEEL PLAIN ANGLE COLUMNS

The main objective of this paper is to provide an efficient and accurate finite element model to understand the behavior of cold-formed steel plain angle columns. The effects of initial local and overall geometric imperfections have been taken into consideration in the analysis. The material nonlinearities of flat and corner portions of the angle sections were incorporated in the model. Failure loads and buckling modes as well as load-shortening curves of plain angle columns were investigated in this study. The nonlinear finite element model was verified against experimental results. The finite element analysis was performed on plain angles compressed between fixed ends over different column lengths, and column curves were obtained.