Current design practice and research on stainless steel structures in Sweden

The current design practice in Sweden is using codes for structural steel a lso when working with stainless steel. For load cases governed by instabili ty this may produce non-conservative errors amounting to 10% while it may g reatly underestimate the ultimate resistance in cases when instability is n ot governing. Three ongoing research projects are briefly described, one on weldbonding, one on plastic forming and one on the behaviour of structural components. A part of the latter concerns fundamental work regarding the m aterial behaviour which in general is described using too simple models. Th is is presented in some detail and its results will be used to provide impr oved finite element simulations. (C) 2000 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd . All rights reserved.