Coupled instability of thin-walled members under combined bending moment, axial and shear force

In this paper we analyse the behaviour of thin-walled steel members with an I-shaped cross-section, in the presence of phenomena of coupled instability as overall-local type and combined state of stress of bending moment, axial and shear force. The analysis has been made by the ‘column model method’ and it has been used for bending moment-curvature-axial force diagrams, modified by the presence of local instability for web buckling of steel beams.

The previous analysis allows one to define interaction diagrams M_Imax−λ−N, which can be used to check the steel members in relation to the overall slenderness and the local slenderness of the web panel.