Bending-Induced Cross-Sectional Deformation of Cold-Formed Steel Channel-Section Beams

In practice, the cold-formed steel structures are widely used, and their geometrical nonlinearity is of great significance in structural design. However, the current analytical solutions are only applied to linear problems, and the nonlinear problems are mostly considered by commercial finite element software. This paper presents an analytical model to describe the bending-induced cross-sectional deformation in cold-formed steel channel-section beams when subjected to transverse bending loads. The nonlinear effect of cross-sectional deformation on the relationship between the overall bending curvature and applied moment is examined. A parametric study is also carried out to examine how the flange width, lip length, and thickness of the section affect the cross-sectional deformation and corresponding nonlinear bending behavior of the beams.