Research On The Local Buckling And Interactive Buckling Behavior Of Aluminum Alloy Columns Under Uniform Compression

Aluminum alloy structures are becoming popular at home and abroad because oftheir unique advantages: good anti-corrosion resistance, light weightness, excellent lowtemperature toughness, extrudibility and recycling. But because of the relatively lowelastic modulus, which is only1/3of steel, designers should take special considerationon the stability of the aluminum alloy structural members. Plenty of studies on theoverall stability of aluminum alloy compressive members have been conducted byforeign researchers, while some studies on the local buckling behavior and limited onthe interactive buckling behavior. In China, the studies on aluminum alloy have juststarted, and there are some studies on the overall buckling behavior but limited on thelocal buckling and interactive buckling behavior. Therefore, to enlarge the currentstudies, experiments and finite element analysis were carried out in this paper to studythe local buckling and interactive buckling behavior of aluminum alloy I-columns underuniform compression, the material was6061-T6and6063-T5. The design methods forcalculating the effective thickness and stability coefficient were given. The studies inthis paper included:(1) Experiments were carried out to study the local buckling behavior of I-columns,including15stub columns of6061-T6and6063-T5. The local geometricalimperfections, local buckling capacities, ultimate loading capacities and failure modeswere studied.(2) Finite element analysis software ANSYS was used to study the local bucklingbehavior of aluminum alloy columns, including398cruciform sections,403square(rectangular) hollow sections and348I sections. The influences of plate thickness, localinitial geometrical imperfections, overall initial geometrical imperfections, yieldstrength, the value of strain-hardening exponent n from Ramberg-Osgood model andinteraction between adjacent members were studied. Models for calculating theeffective thickness were proposed which do not take interaction beween the adjacentplates into consideration. A comparison between71groups of test results and the modelwas made and the calculated results of the model were lower than test results which canbe used in the engineering practice.(3) Experiments were carried out to study interactive buckling behavior of I-columns, including12columns of6061-T6and6063-T5. The local and overallgeometrical imperfections, ultimate loading capacities and failure modes were studied.(4) Finite element analysis software ANSYS was used to study the interactivebuckling behavior of aluminum alloy columns, including673square (rectangular)hollow sections and555I sections. The influences of local initial geometricalimperfections, overall initial geometrical imperfections, yield strength, the value ofstrain-hardening exponent n from Ramberg-Osgood model were studied. Models forcalculating the stability coefficient were proposed. A comparison between existing testresults and the models was made and the calculated results of the models were lowerthan test results which can be used in the engineering practice.The study in this paper enlarges the existing studies on aluminum alloy colomns athome and abroad, giving reference to later studies and structural engineers, which helpsthe use of aluminum alloy structures.