Experimental study of lateral-torsional buckling behavior of stainless steel welded I-section beams

Investigations on lateral-torsional buckling behavior of stainless steel welded I-section beams were carried out through fourpoint bending tests. The Chinese austenitic stainless steel adopted in this study contains approximately 17% of Cr, which could be graded as EN 1.4401. The non-linear stress-strain relationship of the material, the residual stress distribution of the section and the ultimate moment capacity of the welded I-section beams were obtained from the experiments, and they were compared with those results predicted by analytical models recommended by several researchers. Besides, a new model is proposed to predict the residual stress distribution of the stainless steel welded I-section beams.