FLEXURAL BEHAVIOUR OF STIFFENED MODIFIED COLD-FORMED STEEL SECTIONS?EXPERIMENTAL STUDY

The present study deals with the enhancement of the flexural capacity of cold formed steel beams using stiffeners. Beams with two back-to-back lipped channel sections were tested with and without stiffeners. Four such beams were considered with depth 150 mm and thickness of sheets 1mm and 2mm. ISMB 150 was also tested and was used as a yardstick for comparison with equivalent cold-formed sections. All the sections were subjected to “Four point flexural test” to study their behaviour in pure bending. From this study it was found that strength and stiffness of sections made out of 2mm sheets can be substantially enhanced using stiffeners whereas for 1mm sheets the enhancement was not so profound, primarily due to very high propensity for local buckling. Moreover, beams of 2mm sheets exhibited stiffness comparable to ISMB 150 in the initial loading stage.