Investigation on the behaviour and strength of cold-formed steel web stiffened built-up battened columns

Cold-formed steel built-up sections are commonly used as compression elements to carry larger loads and over longer spans when a single individual section is insufficient. This paper reports a numerical study of the cold-formed steel built-up web stiffened lipped channel sections under axial compression. The built-up sections are formed by two identical lipped channels placed back to back with batten plates and are connected by self-driving screw. The Finite element model is developed by ABAQUS software and the model is validated with the results available in the literature. Three types of web stiffened lipped channel cross section have been chosen for the study, based on the AISI-S100:2007 Geometric limitations. The parametric study is extended by the validated model for various slenderness ratios. The column strength predicted by the finite element analysis is compared with the design column strengths predicted by direct strength method (DSM). Based on this study a recommendation is proposed to DSM.