The effect of the non-linear stress-strain behaviour of stainless steels on member capacity

In recent years several countries have developed specifications for the design of stainless steel structural members. Research work over the past 15 years by the Chromium Steels Research Group at the Rand Afrikaans University in Johannesburg, South Africa was used extensively by the American Society of Civil Engineers to update their stainless steel cold-formed design specification which was published in 1991 and will be revised again soon. In Europe a design specification for stainless steel structural members was published recently as part of Eurocode 3. This specification also refers to research results of the Chromium Steels Research Group. The South African Code of Practice for the design of stainless steel structural members will be published soon. This design specification is based on the Canadian design specification for carbon steel cold-formed structural members. This paper will give an overview of some of the research that was carried out at the Rand Afrikaans University to publish the two above mentioned new stainless steel design specifications. It will highlight the different approaches to determine the strength of members and sections and will make recommendations on which methods are best to use in design. Experimental results and conclusions will be discussed. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.