ABSTRACT
During the 1930s, the acceptance and development of cold-formed steel construction in the USA faced some difficulties due to the lack of an appropriate design specification. Computation of the properties of cold-formed sections can be simplified if we consider the material of the section concentrated along the centreline of the steel sheet and area elements replaced by straight or curved ‘line elements’. The local buckling of a section is studied by evaluating the buckling of each straight element on the basis of the theory of compressed-plate stability. Differently from Eurocodes 3 and 9, the AISI Specification does not separately examine the resistance of cross-sections and buckling resistance of members. As far as design criteria are concerned, the first edition of the ‘Specification for the Design of Light Gage Steel Structural Members’, prepared by the AISI Technical Subcommittee, was issued by the American Iron and Steel Institute in 1946.
