Journal of Science and Technology

ISSN: 2456-5660 Volume 3, Issue 01 (FEB-JAN 2018)

www.jst.org.in DOI:https://doi.org/10.46243/jst.2018.v3i01.pp61-69
Investigation of Shear Capacities of Cold-Formed Steel Channel
&SupaCee Sections
A.Medha Sri1, Ch.Manasa Reddy2, G.Sai Krishna3, V.Sravani4, Dr.K.Murali Krishna5, S.Valeswara Rao6
Assistant Professor1,2,3,4,5,6
Department of CIVIL
NRI INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, Visadala X Road, Medikonduru(M), Guntur (Dist), Andhra Pradesh 522438.

Abstract
Cold-formed steel channel sections have been widely applied in structural buildings. This type of section is then added stiffeners in the web to
form the new section called SupaCee. The capacities of these sections have been investigated due to shear actions paralleling their webs.
Shear forces are assumed to be resisted by the web, but the presence of the flanges and lips also have specific impacts on the shear capacities
of these sections. This paper, therefore, investigates the effects of the flange widths and lip lengths on the shear capacities of the channel and
SupaCee sections. Also, the shear capacities of SupaCee sections are studied to illustrate their strength improvements compared to those of
channel sections. Shear capacities of the investigated sections are determined according to AS/NZS 4600:2018. The study demonstrated the
innovation of SupaCee sections in shear strength improvements in comparison with those of channel sections.

Keywords: Shear capacities; Cold-formed steel; Channel sections; SupaCee sections.

Introduction Cold-formed steel channel sections have become a common product in structural buildings with
numerous applications [1]. They can be subjected to compression, bending or shear. In terms of compression or
bending, buckling modes such as local, distortional, flexural, or flexural-torsional buckling have been investigated in
many research studies and are deeply understood [1]. In the case of shear, shear buckling of channel section was
investigated with the consideration of the web alone, but the flanges and the lips were ignored in the behavior. There
was not any consistent theory for shear buckling of full thin-wall sections. The channel sections have then added
web stiffeners to increase the stabilities. These such sections termed as SupaCee sections have a variety of
advantages compared to the traditional channel ones, as discussed in Pham and Vu [2]. The recent development of
the DSM method for thin-wall sections in shear required the elastic buckling loads of the whole section in pure
shear. Pham and Hancock [3-6] carried out a series of the channel and SupaCee section beams under shear to
provide deep understandings of their strengths and behaviors. Also, Hancock and Pham [7,8] used the complex
Semi-Analytical Finite Strip Method proposed by Plank and Wittrick [9] to develop the signature curve for channel
sections under shear actions with the assumption of unrestraint at end conditions. Pham and Hancock [10] used a
spline finite strip analysis to investigate the shear buckling of whole channel sections restrained at their ends. The
spline finite strip analysis was developed by Lau and Hancock [11]. To reduce computer resources in analysis,
Hancock and Pham [12] developed a new version of the semi-analytical finite strip analysis called reSAFSM that
allows considering restrained ends in the analysis of thin-walled sections under shear actions. Channel sections with
intermediate web stiffeners have been also investigated by Pham [13-14] using Semi-Analytical Finite Strip Method.
This method was subsequently incorporated into the Thin-Wall-2 [15] in the analysis of the buckling loads under
shear [16]. Thin-Wall-2 has been allowed to use for elastic buckling analysis of thin- wall sections according to the
AS/NZS 4600-2018 [17]. The paper, therefore, is aimed to investigate the shear capacities of the channel and
SupaCee sections with the variations of dimensions of the flanges and lips. The effects of the flanges and lips on the
elastic shear buckling loads of thin-walled channel sections can be accounted for as presented in Appendix D3, but
the intermediate web stiffeners are not included. Thin-Wall-2 software program [15], therefore, can be used for the
elastic shear buckling analyses in this investigation. The shear capacities of commercial SupaCee sections are also
investigated to illustrate their innovation in strength improvements based on comparing. the shear capacities
between SupaCee and channel sections. The investigated sections are commercial sections provided by BlueScope
Lysaght [18]. The THIN-WALL-2 software program [15] is used for elastic bucking analysis under shear actions,
and the shear capacities are determined according to the AS/NZS 4600: 2018 [17].
Determination of the Shear Capacities of ColdFormed Steel Section

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Journal of Science and Technology
ISSN: 2456-5660 Volume 3, Issue 01 (FEB-JAN 2018)
www.jst.org.in DOI:https://doi.org/10.46243/jst.2018.v3i01.pp61-69
The nominal shear capacity of beams without transverse web stiffeners can be calculated determined according to
AS/NZS 4600-2018 [17] as follows:

whereVy ,Vcr are the yield shear force and the elastic shear buckling force of the section;λv is the non-dimensional
slenderness, y v cr V V λ = . The yield shear force Vy , can be calculated as 0.6 V Af y wy = , where Aw is the area
of the web element; y f is the design yield stress. The elastic shear buckling force Vcr can be determined according
to Appendix D, AS/NZS 4600-2018 [17] or a rational elastic buckling analysis. THIN-WALL-2 software program
[15] will be used for this elastic buckling analysis in this investigation. This software program was developed at the
University of Sydney using the finite strip method. One of the outputs of buckling analysis is a signature curve
performing the relationship between the elastic buckling stress and the half-wavelength of each buckling mode. This
program can be used for buckling analysis under compression, bending, shear, localized loading or combined
actions. (Figure 1 (a)) shows the signature curve of a channel section under the shear actions paralleling the web.
The elastic shear buckling stress is the minimum point in the curve with the buckling mode demonstrated in (Figure
1(b)).

a) The signature curve of a channel section under shear

The illustrations of shear buckling mode

Figure 1: Elastic shear buckling analysis.

Effects of Flanges and Lips on the Shear Capacities of Channel and SupaCee Sections
The geometry of the unlipped, lipped channel and SupaCee sections are demonstrated in (Figure 2). The
section depths (D) are 250 mm, the flanges (B) vary from 0.1 to 0.9 times of the depth (D). The sectional
thicknesses (t) are 1.5 mm, 1.9 mm and 2.4 mm, and the inner radii at corners (r1 or r2 ) are 5 mm. The
elastic shearbuckling stresses are determined with the support of the THINWALL-2 software program [15].

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Journal of Science and Technology
ISSN: 2456-5660 Volume 3, Issue 01 (FEB-JAN 2018)
www.jst.org.in DOI:https://doi.org/10.46243/jst.2018.v3i01.pp61-69
The buckling stresses are listed in (Table 1) with the variation of the dimensions of the flanges and the lips.
The shear capacities are then calculated with the design yield stress y f of 450 MPa, as presented in Section
2. The nominal shear capacities are listed in (Table 2) and demonstrated in (Figure 3).

Figure 2: Nomenclature for investigated sections

The ratio B/D

Figure 3: Nominal shear capacities of investigated sections with the thickness of 1.5 mm
Table 1: Elastic shear buckling stresses of the investigated sections.

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Journal of Science and Technology
ISSN: 2456-5660 Volume 3, Issue 01 (FEB-JAN 2018)
www.jst.org.in DOI:https://doi.org/10.46243/jst.2018.v3i01.pp61-69

The ratio B/D

figure 4: Nominal shear capacities of investigated sections with the thickness of 1.9 mm.
Based on the results in (Table 2), the shear forces are maximum at the ratio B/D of 0.5 for unlipped channel
sections, whereas the maximum of shear forces are obtained at the lower ratio B/D varying from 0.2 to 0.4
depending on the lip lengths for lipped channel or SupaCee sections. In terms of lipped
channelandSupaCee sections, as the ratio B/D increases from 0.1 to 0.2, the shear force goes up rapidly.
This illustrates the significant contribution of the flange on the shear capacities of the channel sections. The
ratio B/D subsequently increases, the shear capacities improve slowly to the maximum values,
subsequentlyreducing gradually as the flange width increase to 0.9. These results can be explained due to
the effects of flange slenderness (Figures (4&5)). With the small flange, there is very little effect of flange
slenderness on the shear buckling capacity. This effect is significant when the flange dimensions increase
resulting in the reduction of the shear capacities. In terms of the unlipped channel section, as the increase of
the ratio B/D, the shear capacities havea slow increase trend to the maximum values, and then have a
gradual reduction. When the ratio B/D increases to 0.8 and 0.9, shear buckling occurs in the flanges (Figure
6), this leads to the significant reductions of elastic buckling stresses. The lips are then added, shear
buckling is prevented in the flanges, and the elastic shear buckling stresses are significantly improved as
presented in (Table 1)

Table 2: Nominal shear capacities of the investigated sections.

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Journal of Science and Technology
ISSN: 2456-5660 Volume 3, Issue 01 (FEB-JAN 2018)
www.jst.org.in DOI:https://doi.org/10.46243/jst.2018.v3i01.pp61-69

The ratio B/D

Figure 5: Nominal shear capacities of investigated sections with the thickness of 2.4 mm.

Comparison of Shear Capacities of Channel and SupaCee Sections

The channel and SupaCee sections for this investigation are taken from the catalogue provided by
BlueScope Lysaght [18]. Their dimensions are presented in (Table 3) with the nomenclature demonstrated

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Journal of Science and Technology
ISSN: 2456-5660 Volume 3, Issue 01 (FEB-JAN 2018)
www.jst.org.in DOI:https://doi.org/10.46243/jst.2018.v3i01.pp61-69
in (Figure 2). The elastic shear buckling stresses are determined using the Thin-Wall-2 software program
[15] and are listed in (Table 3). These buckling stresses are then used todetermine shear capacities of the
investigated sections according to AS/NZS 4600-2018 [17] as presented in Section 2. The design yield
stress y f of 450 MPa is used for this investigation. Shear capacities of channel and SupaCee are
summarized in (Table 3). The results of shear capacities are plotted in percentage diagrams, where the
shear capacities of channel sections are shown in the horizontal axis and the vertical axis is for the shear
capacity deviations (in %) between SupaCee and channel sections, as illustrated in (Figure 7).

Nominal shear capacity of channel sections (kN)

Figure 7: The nominal shear capacity deviation between investigated sections.
The SupaCee sections have demonstrated their innovation in shear capacities compared to those of channel sections
due to the effects of the intermediate web stiffeners with the increase of shear capacities reaching 22%. The web
stiffeners become more beneficial effects with the smaller thicknesses in all investigated sections. This conclusion
can be seen as the strength improvements of the SC250 section decrease from 11.54% to 4.48% when the
thicknesses increase from 1.5mm to 2.4mm as presented in (Table 4). This trend is also observed in the other
sections. For small sections (SC150 and SC200 sections), the shear strength improvements are more noticeable for
the small section. This result is illustrated as the higher strength improvementsof SC150 section compared to those
of SC200 section in almost investigated thicknesses. For large sections (see SC250 to SC400 sections), the strength
improvements become more significant as the increase of web slenderness. This conclusion is based onthe
increasing trend of strength improvements from 7.29% to 9.14% corresponding to the increase of web slenderness
from SC25019 to SC40019 sections. This trend is also seen for the other thicknesses.
Table 3: The nominal dimensions of channel and SupaCee sections.

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Journal of Science and Technology
ISSN: 2456-5660 Volume 3, Issue 01 (FEB-JAN 2018)
www.jst.org.in DOI:https://doi.org/10.46243/jst.2018.v3i01.pp61-69

Note: the inner radius r1 = r2 = 5mm; t, D, B, L1 , L2 , GS, S (mm); α1 , α2 (0)

Table 4: The elastic shear buckling stress and nominal shear capacity of the channel and SupaCee sections.

Note: ∆ (%) is the nominal shear capacity deviation between SupaCee and Lipped channel sections (in %)
Conclusion
The paper investigated the effects of flange widths and lip lengths on the shear capacities of unlipped channel,
lipped channel and SupaCee sections. The investigated results have demonstrated the role of the flanges and lips on
the shear capacities with the significant increase of shear forces as the ratio of B/D increase from 0.1 to 0.2, but then

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Journal of Science and Technology
ISSN: 2456-5660 Volume 3, Issue 01 (FEB-JAN 2018)
www.jst.org.in DOI:https://doi.org/10.46243/jst.2018.v3i01.pp61-69
observe a gradual reduction due to the effects of flange slenderness. Also, the lips can prevent the shear buckling
from occurring in the flanges with the large ratio of B/D. The paper subsequently investigated the innovation in
shear capacities of SupaCee sections compared to those of traditional channel sections with significant shear
strength improvements.
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