FLEXURAL TEST ON COLD- FORMED STEEL I BEAMS

Currently, cold-formed steels are commonly used widely in the steel building industries. However, because of the weak torsional rigidity of singly- symmetric cold- formed steel sections such as lipped channel sections, an experimental investigation on cold-formed steel I sections under a 4-point bending test was conducted. The I sections, IC10019 and IC15019, were assembled with bolts on the webs of 2 identical lipped channel sections that resulted in 4 different connection spacings, L/6, L/4, L/3, and L/2 with a span length of L-s = 3.8 m. The web height and connection spacing (bolts spacing) were key parameters in this study. The results show that when the connection spacing is smaller, the web height is more influential on the increase of the maximum load, but it is less influential on the deflection reduction. The connection spacing is also influential on maximum loads. Local or/and distortional buckling occurred at the load-bearing plate, at mid-span, and between the load-bearing plate and mid-span.