Effect of shear stress on distortional buckling of CFS beams subjected to uniformly distributed transverse loading

Abstract

This article presents an analytical investigation on the effects of shear stress and compressive stress gradient on the distortional buckling of cold-formed steel channel- and zed-section beams subjected to uniformly distributed transverse load. The study is performed by using the principle of minimum potential energy. It is shown that for beams subjected to a uniformly distributed transverse load the buckling wave coupling in distortional buckling modes caused due to compressive stress gradient is very important, particularly for long beams. The effect of shear stress on the critical stress of distortional buckling exists but only in short beams. For beams longer than 3 m the shear stress effect can generally be ignored.