Impacts of Web Stiffener Locations on Capacities of Cold-Formed Steel SupaCee Sections

This paper investigates the sectional capacities of cold-formed steel SupaCee sections due to the effects of web stiffener locations. SupaCee sections in the form of channel sections are made by creating stiffeners in the sectional webs. This allows such sections to increase their stability and improve their strengths in comparison with the original channel sections. These innovations of the SupaCee sections have been discussed in previous studies on the basis of the commercial sections with the web stiffener locations are regulated in the catalogues from manufacturers. Locations of these stiffeners, therefore, are varied in this paper to find out their influence on the sectional capacities of the investigated SupaCee sections. Full bracings are applied to prevent global buckling failure modes. The sectional capacities are determined using a new design method called the Direct Strength Method as regulated in Australia/New Zealand Standard AS/NZS 4600: 2018. In this method, elastic buckling analysis is compulsory for the design procedure and can be carried out by using commercial software programs. Two cases of applied loads including compression and bending are considered in this investigation. It is found that an increasing trend is obtained for local buckling strengths if the stiffeners reach toward the centroid of the web and there is an opposite trend for distortional buckling strengths.