The objective of this paper is to research the distortional buckling mode and load-carrying capacity of cold-formed thin-walled steel columns with circle holes in web. Compression tests were conducted on 26 intermediate length columns with and without holes. The test members included four different kinds of circle holes. Test results show that the distortional buckling occurred for intermediate columns with holes and the strength of columns with holes was less than that of columns without circle hole. The ultimate strength of columns decreased with the increase of the total transverse width of hole in cross-section of members. For each specimen, a shell finite element Eigen-buckling analysis and nonlinear analysis was also conducted. Analysis results show that the holes can affect on the elastic buckling stress of columns. The shell finite element can be used to model the buckling modes of columns with holes and analyze the load-carrying capacities of members with holes. The comparison on ultimate strength between test results and calculated results using Chinese code GB50018-2002, North American specification AISI S100-2016 and nonlinear Finite Element method was made. The calculated ultimate strength show that results predicted with AISI S100-2016 and analyzed using finite element method are close to test results. The calculated results using Chinese code is higher than test results because Chinese code has no provision to calculate the ultimate strength of members with holes. So the calculated method for cold-formed steel columns with circle holes was proposed. The calculated results using this proposed method show good agreement with test results and can be used in engineering design of cold-formed steel columns with circle hole.
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