Behaviors of CAS and CUS thick-walled channel composite beams

Recently the thick open section composite beams are extensively used to replace conventional metal load carrying members and stiffeners of structural elements. However, most of studies on the open section composite beams are confined to the thin composite beams. There are some works focused on the thick composite beams but they are limited only to closed section beams. Therefore, it is required to develop an appropriate model to analyze the thick open section composite beams. In this study, the cantilever beams of two specific lay-up configurations are considered which are the circumferentially asymmetric stiffness (CAS) and circumferentially uniform stiffness (CUS) beams. Under the vertical loading at the free end, loading induced deformations are obtained for the thick beams using the suggested model. The model includes coupled stiffness and secondary warping effects. The results are compared with those obtained using thin beam model to observe the thickness effects. Those results are also compared with the finite element analysis results for the verification of the suggested model. A good agreement is obtained between the results from the suggested model and those from finite element analysis.