On the calculation of deflections in structural stainless steel beams: an experimental and numerical investigation

This paper focuses on the flexural behaviour of stainless steel beams and on the determination of deflections. A series of experimental tests on stainless steel beams is presented. The experimental program includes tests to determine the stress-strain relationship of the material, considering the effects of cold work. The experimental tests are performed on six simply supported beams loaded centrally and six continuous beams loaded symmetrically at mid-span. These beams have square hollow sections and rectangular hollow sections from a cold-formed process, and hot-rolled H-sections. A comparative analysis between the experimental results of deflections and those results derived from a numerical model considering material nonlinearity is done. Likewise, deflections obtained using rules specified in Eurocode 3, Part 1.4 "Supplementary rules for stainless steel" are presented and are also compared with both experimental and numerical results. Several conclusions are made on the calculation of deflections in stainless steel beams considering the effects of the material non-linearity, the effective cross-section and the variation of Young's modulus along the length of the beam. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.