The intermittently rivet fastened (RHFCB) is a new cold-formed hollow section proposed as an alternative to welded hollow flange channel beams. It is a monosymmetric channel section made by intermittently rivet fastening two torsionally rigid rectangular hollow flanges to a web plate. This process enables the end us-ers to choose an effective combination of different web and flange plate sizes to achieve op-timum design capacities. Recent research studies focused mainly on the shear behaviour of the most commonly used lipped channel beam and welded hollow flange beam sections with and without web openings. However, no research has been undertaken on the shear behav-iour and strength of rivet fastened RHFCBs with web openings. Hence a detailed experi-mental study involving 30 shear tests was undertaken to investigate the shear behaviour and strength of rivet fastened RHFCBs with circular web openings. Simply supported test spec-imens of RHFCB with aspect ratios of 1.0 and 1.5 were loaded at mid-span until failure. Comparison of experimental shear capacities with corresponding predictions from the cur-rent Australian cold-formed steel design rules showed that the current design rules are inad-equate for the shear design of rivet fastened RHFCBs with circular web openings. Signifi-cant improvements to web shear buckling occurred due to the presence of rectangular hollow flanges while considerable post-buckling strength is also observed. Such enhancements to the shear behaviour and capacity were achieved with a rivet spacing of 100 mm. Improved design rules are proposed for rivet fastened RHFCBs with circular web openings based on the test results. This paper presents the details of this experimental study and the results.
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