A study of the buckling of built-up columns

Many steel bridges, buildings, transmission and reception towers are constructed using built-up members. The buckling load of a built-up column is of interest to the designer because bending moments and stresses from the transverse loads are amplified when the compressive force approaches this critical load. This thesis presents an analytical study to evaluate the critical buckling load for several types of built-up prismatic members. The effect of shear deformations on the buckling strength is discussed in detail. An experimental investigation on the measurement of buckling strength of built-up members was made on small scale test columns. Test results are compared with those predicted by the theoretical analysis. The tests verify the predictions of column buckling strengths made using the theoretical basis presented in this paper.