Distortional buckling formulae for cold-formed steel C- and Z-section members Part Ⅱ-Validation and application

摘要

General GBT-based fully analytical formulae have been derived in a companion paper, which provides distortional bifurcation stress estimates in cold-formed steel C- and Z-section members acted by arbitrary applied stress distributions and displaying four end support conditions. This paper (ⅰ) addresses the implementation of the above general formulae, (ⅱ) illustrates their application in detail, (ⅲ) validates them, by means of comparisons with exact results, and (ⅳ) compares their estimates with values yielded by other formulae available in the literature. After considering a wide range of (ⅰ) cross-section geometries and lengths and (ⅱ) applied stress distributions, it is concluded that the GBT-based formulae are both accurate and universal.