THEORETICAL ANALYSIS OF THE ELASTIC BUCKLING COEFFICIENT OF RECTANGULAR LONGITUDINALLY PROFILED STEEL PLATES

Longitudinally profiled (LP) steel plates will be widely used in engineering structures due to their adaptation to the needs of modern buildings such as super high-rise and large span buildings. Because of the geometric characteristics, the local buckling deformation of LP steel plates is more likely to occur at positions near the thin end, and the performance of local stability is significantly different from that of the steel plates with a constant thickness under the same load case. As a consequence, the local stability problem of LP steel plates needs to be studied in depth. Based on the energy principle, the Galerkin and Rayleigh-Ritz method (GRM) is used in the theoretical formulae derivation of the elastic buckling coefficient, where the target rectangular LP steel plates are under uniaxial uniform compression and four different boundary conditions. The resultant formulas are verified by using finite element software ANSYS. The relationship curves between the elastic buckling coefficient of rectangular LP plates with different thickness parameters and length-to-width ratios are obtained, which provide a theoretical guidance and design basis for engineering applications of LP steel plates.