Column curves for stainless steel alloys

The paper describes a column curve formulation capable of producing accurate strength curves for cold-formed stainless steel columns. The formulation uses a non-linear expression for the imperfection parameter but is otherwise identical to the Perry-Robertson equation used in Eurocode3, Parts 1.1, 1.3 and 1.4. It is shown that several column curves are necessary for accurately describing the strength of austenitic and austenitic-ferritic stainless steel alloy columns and two curves are proposed. One of these is close to the curve for cold-formed sections currently used in the draft Eurocode3, Part 1.4. A new column curve is also proposed for ferritic alloys and 12% chromium weldable structural steels. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.