Analysis of the distortional buckling curves of cold-formed steel beams through GBTUL and DSM

Resumo

Due to the wide variety of cross-section as well as their good mass/strength ratio, cold-formed steel
(CFS) components are gaining prominence among metal structures. However, this material is more susceptible to
local, distortional, and global buckling. The Direct Strength Method (DSM) requires obtaining the buckling critical
loads and applying these data in conjunction with a series of resistance curves to determine the final cross-section
strength. This study aims to investigate the behavior of distortional buckling mode for a CFS simply supported

beam, and to compare the results obtained through DSM and GBTUL (software responsible for numerical compu-
tational analysis). To obtain the data, the GBTUL was used, which, in turn, uses the geometries and flow stresses.

For this analysis, a cold-formed, non-drilled, multi-dimension section was chosen. From the analyses presented
in this paper, it was noticed that the distortional curves available in the Brazilian standard do not overestimate the
final strength of the CFS beams simply supported when subjected to uniform bending.