ABSTRACT
Local buckling reduces building stability, and as is well known, steel rectangular hollow sections (RHS), which are popularly used as column members in steel moment-resistant frames in Japan, lose their strength quickly due to local buckling. In this paper, we proposed an analysis method and an analytical model for predicting elastic–plastic instability of building frames composed of RHS columns. The effect of local buckling is involved in the stress–strain relation model for stress fibers in the element cross section. This paper will present an accurate and practical stress–strain model including local buckling effect, and the applicability to a nonlinear frame analysis will be discussed in comparison with the experimental behaviors of column specimens and a multi-story frame specimen.
