FLEXIBLY-CONNECTED THIN-WALLED FRAMEWORK

The overall behaviour of a structure depends not only on the member be haviour in isolation, but also on how the members interact. For a stru cture composed of cold-formed thin-walled members, the occurrence of v arious buckling phenomena, for example, local and torsional flexural b uckling, is possible. Coupled with the non-linear characteristic of th e connections, the overall behaviour of the structure cannot be accura tely predicted or analysed by conventional design and analysis. In thi s paper, the analytical approach employed to deal with flexibly-connec ted cold-formed thin-walled framework systems is outlined. Local and t orsional flexural buckling of members, connection strength and stiffne ss, shortening due to flexure and plasticity of the members are consid ered in the analysis. Experimental tests were carried out on symmetric al single and double storey frameworks fabricated from cold-formed thi n-walled plain channel members and connections of varying strength and stiffness. The experimental results are compared with the analytical predictions.