Local Stability of Laser-Welded Stainless-Steel T-Section Stub Columns

This paper presents experimental and numerical studies on the local stability and compression resistances of laser-welded stainless-steel T-section stub columns. A testing program was first conducted, including material coupon tests, residual stress measurements, and 20 stub column tests. The testing program was supplemented by a numerical modeling program, in which finite-element models were developed and validated against the test results. The finite-element models were afterward used to perform parametric studies to obtain additional numerical data. The test and numerical data were adopted to evaluate the main design rules in the American and European standards and the continuous strength method. The evaluation results indicate that the American and European standards yield conservative resistance predictions, especially for nonslender T-sections, owing to no consideration of material strain hardening, while the continuous strength method is shown to provide greatly improved design accuracy and consistency over the American and European standards.