ABSTRACT
Stainless steel often exhibits highly non-linear behaviour, and in the case of short columns this can lead to substantial conservatism in the prediction of failure load by design codes by virtue of their use of the 0.2% virgin proof stress as an upper limit of capacity. This paper examines the behaviour of cold formed short stainless steel stub columns where the material follows a Ramberg-Osgood stress-strain law. The column cross-sectional dimensions and length are varied to examine the effects on the failure capacity when the column is subjected to varying magnitudes of combined bending and axial loading. Two different methods of analysis are employed, (1) the Eurocode 3, Part 1.4 design code using an enhanced 0.2% proof stress combined with a full section moment capacity within the interaction formula with nominal levels of loading eccentricity, and (2), the same approach but using the true eccentricity with reference to the unsupported length of the columns. The results are compared with those obtained from a series of compression tests performed on cold formed stainless steel Type 304 stub columns of lipped channel cross-section for the same conditions.
