Combined bending and web crippling of aluminum SHS members

This paper presents experimental and numerical investigations of aluminum tubular members subjected to combined bending and web crippling. A series of tests was performed on square hollow sections (SHS) fabricated by extrusion using 6061-T6 heat-treated aluminum alloy. Different specimen lengths were tested to obtain the interaction relationship between moment and concentrated load. The non-linear finite element models were developed and verified against the experimental results obtained in this study and test data from existing literature for aluminum tubular sections subjected to pure bending, pure web crippling, and combined bending and web crippling. Geometric and material non-linearities were included in the finite element models. The finite element models closely predicted the strengths and failure modes of the tested specimens. Hence, the models were used for an extensive parametric study of cross-section geometries, and the web slenderness values ranged from 6.0 to 86.2. The combined bending and web crippling test results and strengths predicted from the finite element analysis were compared with the design strengths obtained using the current American Specification, Australian/New Zealand Standard and European Code for aluminum structures. The findings suggest that the current specifications are either quite conservative or unconservative for aluminum square hollow sections subjected to combined bending and web crippling. Hence, a bending and web crippling interaction equation for aluminum square hollow section specimens is proposed in this paper.