A Study on the Moment Capacity of H-Section Flexural Members with Local Buckling

This paper describes the moment capacity of flexural members with local buckling based on a series of FE and experiment results. Thin-walled flexural members undergo local, lateral-torsional, or interactive buckling according to the section geometries and lateral boundary conditions. Flexural members with large width-to-thickness ratios in the flanges or the web may undergo local buckling before lateral-torsional buckling. Local buckling has a negative effect on the flexural strength based on the lateral-torsional buckling of flexural members. This phenomenon should be considered in the estimation of the flexural strength of thin-walled sections. Flexural members with various width-to-thickness ratios in their flanges and web were analyzed. Initial imperfections in the local buckling mode, and residual stresses, were included in the FE analyses. Simple bending moment formulae for flexural members were proposed based on the FE and test results to account for local and lateral-torsional buckling. The proposed bending moment formulae for the thin-walled flexural members in the Direct Strength Method use the empirical strength formula and the grosssection modulus. The ultimate flexural strengths predicted by the proposed moment formulae were compared with the AISC (2005), Eurocode3 (2003), and Korean Highway Bridge Design Specifications (2010). The comparison showed that the proposed bending moment formulae can reasonably predict the ultimate moment capacity of thin-walled flexural members.