The excellent corrosion resistance presented by all stainless steel grades, together with their appropriate mechanical properties, aesthetic appearance and easy maintenance , make s these metallic alloys perfect for sustainable structural performances. However, their nonlinear stress - strain behaviour together with the ir strong strain hardening features, make s them different from carbon steel and makes the development of some specific guidance necessary . Although the compressive and flexura l behaviour of stainless steel R ecta ngular and Square Hollow S ections (RHS and SH S ) has been widely analysed and advanced design approaches considering strain hardening have been developed, more general loading conditions such as combined axial compression and bending moment loading conditions still need to be investigated. Within this scenario , this paper presents a n experimental programme on several ferritic RHS and SHS stub column tests subjected to concentric and eccentric compression . The objective is to extend the recent research on austenitic and lean duplex stainless steel RHS u nder combined loading to ferritic grades by assessing the applicability and accuracy of the intera ction expressions currently codifie d in EN1993 - 1 - 4 and those proposed in the literature.

Peer Reviewed