Recent studies show that the current lateral torsional buckling design rules in EN 1993-1-1 for carbon steel are very conservative for stocky sections in the medium slenderness range. This phenomenon is also noticeable for stainless steel beams, even though a rather limited amount of experimental results exist. The discrepancy between the tests and the theoretical results is nevertheless reduced if the recently developed lateral torsional buckling formula (Taras & Greiner 2010) is used. This paper investigates the lateral torsional buckling behaviour of welded lean duplex stainless steel I section beams using the finite element (FE) method. On the basis of the experiments and FE models, the accuracy of EN 1993-1-4 and of Taras & Greiner (2010) are assessed. Finally, conclusions on the lateral torsional buckling behaviour of welded lean duplex stainless steel I sections are drawn.
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