Investigation on Flexural Behaviour of Cold Formed Latticed Built-Up Beam

Abstract

There are two structural members used in steel construction the hot rolled members and the cold formed members. They are light members compared to the traditional heavier hot rolled steel structural members used in the field. They have high strength to weight ratio resulting in less dead weight making it a good option in construction of bridges roof trusses transmission line towers multi storied buildings and other structural members. This paper is done to understand the flexural capacity and to enhance it by developing innovative latticed cold formed steel beam. The impact of web opening of the cold formed beam on the flexural behavior of cold formed built-up I section under two point loading is investigated for the simply supported end conditions. Numerical analysis is performed using finite element analysis (FEM) software. From results, the load vs. Deflection curve, failure modes and ultimate load carrying capacity of the specimen presented in this paper. Therefore the main focus of this project is to investigate the flexural behavior of these steel members and by replacing the lattice hot rolled section by cold formed steel sections. The ultimate load carrying capacity with failure mode of simulated FEA models was compared with experimental results.