Tests on intermediately stiffened plate elements and beam compression elements

Abstract This paper describes an experimental investigation into the behaviour of cold-formed steel intermediately stiffened plates which are subject to pure compression and cold-formed beams with intermediately stiffened compression elements which are subject to bending. Each plate or beam has a central intermediate stiffener. The investigation is concerned with the performance of the intermediately stiffened elements with different degrees of rigidity provided by the stiffener. The ultimate loads are compared with the predictions of BS 5950 Part 5 Code and the first Draft Eurocode 3.