DefinePK

Abstract

Lightweight and thin-walled cold-formed steel section has become a popular material in building and engineering application. Cold-formed steel sections are available in a variety of thickness, shapes and steel grade. Continual researches have been carried out world widely for cold-formed steel sections with straight profile. However cold-formed steel section with curved profile, which serves both esthetic and engineering purposes for arch and truss structures, has not been studied in depth. This study aims to investigate the flexural behavior of cold-formed steel channel section with curved profile. Cold-formed steel channel (CFSC) with lips and intermediate stiffeners is selected. The CSFC is cut and bended by clamps, forming into cold-formed steel channel curved section (CFSC-CS). Six specimens of CFSC-CS with different weld and screw profiles are prepared, together with one CFSC section without curved used as controlled specimen (CFSC-NS). The bending behavior, vertical deformation and horizontal deformation of the seven CFSC specimens are determined experimentally. From the results, the flexural strengths for all CFSC-CS specimens are lower than CFSC-NS, with percentage of strength reduction range from 8.79 % to 38.80 %. Among the six curved sections, CFSC-CS with three spot weld locations (CFSC-CS3) indicated the highest ultimate load, i.e. 6.484 kN. CFSC-CS3 shows a potential to decrease the vertical flange and horizontal web deformation, and is capable to protect the section from the flexural torsional and local buckling.