Direct Strength Method for calculating distortional buckling capacity of cold-formed thin-walled steel columns with uniform and non-uniform elevated temperatures

This paper assesses the applicability of the Direct Strength Method (DSM) to calculating the distortional buckling strength of cold-formed thin-walled (CF-TW) steel members with uniform and non-uniform elevated temperature distributions in the cross-section. The assessment was carried out by checking the DSM calculation results with numerical simulation results using the general finite element software ABAQUS which was further validated against ambient and uniform elevated temperature tests on short lipped channel sections, in addition to the authors previous validation studies for thin-walled steel columns with non-uniform temperature distributions. The validated numerical model has been used to generate an extensive database (453) of numerical results of load carrying capacity of CF-TW members with different uniform and non-uniform temperature distributions in the cross-sections, under different boundary and loading conditions and with different dimensions and lengths. It is concluded that the existing DSM distortional buckling curve for ambient temperature application is also applicable for columns with uniform temperature distributions in the cross-section, but is un-conservative for columns with non-uniform temperature distributions in the cross-section. This paper proposes a modification to the distortional buckling curve to enable DSM to deal with distortional buckling in columns with non-uniform temperature distributions. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.