Local buckling of aluminum members: Testing and classification

Within the activities of CEN-TC250/SC9, the technical committee charged with the preparation of Eurocode 9 on Aluminum Structures, an extensive experimental program devoted to the evaluation of the ultimate resistance of aluminum alloy hollow members subjected to local buckling under uniform compression has been recently completed. The experimental program concerns both rectangular hollow sections and square hollow sections made of 6000-series alloys and produced by the major European aluminum industries. These experimental tests have provided a significant amount of data concerning the influence of the b/t (width-to-thickness) ratios on the local buckling resistance of members. On the basis of the obtained results, an empirical formulation for predicting the average strain corresponding to the ultimate resistance is derived and a new classification criterion accounting for the interaction between the two slenderness parameters of the cross section is proposed. Finally, the obtained results are used in setting up a new method for predicting the stable part of the rotation capacity of aluminum alloy beams subjected to non-uniform bending.