Web crippling of stainless-steel tubes with bolt-anchored carbon-fibre-reinforced polymer Available to Purchase

This paper presents a numerical investigation and design equation for web crippling of cold-formed stainless-steel tubes strengthened with bonded and bolt-anchored plates of carbon-fibre-reinforced polymer. The bolt-anchored polymer strengthening scheme was proved by previous experimental study to delay or totally prevent de-bonding failure and significantly improve web-crippling behaviour of stainless-steel tubes. A non-linear finite-element model was developed and verified against existing experimental results. An extensive parametric study was then carried out using different web slenderness, bearing-plate length and polymer-plate thickness to investigate the increased resistance of strengthened stainless-steel tubes to web crippling. Two loading conditions of end two-flange loading and interior two-flange loading were considered. The test data and numerical results were then compared with US and European web-crippling design rules for stainless-steel structures. A comparison was also made with a web-crippling design equation proposed by other researchers for polymer-strengthened stainless-steel tubes. Finally, a unified web-crippling equation is proposed for bolt-anchored polymer-strengthened cold-formed stainless-steel tubes under end and interior two-flange loading conditions.