Tests on ferritic stainless steel simply supported and continuous SHS and RHS beams

Abstract

Development of efficient design guidance for stainless steel structures is key for the spreading of this corrosion-resistant material by considering both nonlinear behavior and strain hardening into predicting expressions, together with allowing the consideration of moment redistribution in indeterminate structures. With the aim of analyzing the bending moment redistribution capacity in ferritic stainless steel beams (RHS and SHS), an experimental programme is presented. The tests contribute to the assessment of EN 1993-1-4 (2006) and classical and new plastic design methods available in the literature to indeterminate stainless steel structures, not currently allowed for stainless steels. Additional tests results reported by other authors are also studied. The analysis indicated that cross-sectional classification limits seem to be too optimistic for ferritic stainless steels and further research is needed for the extension of plastic design to these grades, although promising predictions of ultimate loads are obtained for austenitic and lean duplex stainless steels.