Elastic buckling of cold-formed steel columns and beams with holes

Simplified methods for approximating the global, distortional, and local critical elastic buckling loads of cold-formed steel columns and beams with holes are developed and summarized. These methods provide engineering approximations appropriate for design, but are intended to be general enough to accommodate the range of hole shapes, locations, and spacings common in industry. The simplified methods are developed as a convenient alternative to shell finite element eigen-buckling analysis, which require laborious and subjective visual identification methods as well as commercial software not generally accessible to the engineering community. Global buckling of cold-formed steel beams and columns, including the influence of holes, is predicted with approximate “weighted average” cross-section properties formulated from classical energy-based stability solutions. Distortional and local buckling of a cold-formed steel member with holes are determined with the semi-analytical finite strip method, considering appropriate modifications to the element thickness and choice of buckling half-wavelength. The proposed methods are verified with shell finite element eigen-buckling studies. Unambiguous, simple methods for elastic buckling prediction of members with holes is central to the extension of the Direct Strength Method (DSM) for cold-formed steel member ultimate strength determination.