Bending collapse of thin-walled rectangular section columns

This paper reviews the existing methods of collapse analysis for thin-walle d rectangular section tubes subjected to bending about a principal axis and suggests a new collapse mechanism that gives an improved analytical soluti on for the moment-rotation relationship. The new model is kinematically adm issible and completely analytical. It involves two unknown constants, hall the length of the folding wave and the rolling radius in the calculation, w hich are determined by minimising a mean crumpling moment. The new analytic al solution shows good agreement with experimental results. (C) 2001 Elsevi er Science Ltd. All rights reserved.