Welded Box Compression Members

An experimental and theoretical study is presented on the strength of welded box compression members of high strength steel. The member cross sections are composed of plates with relatively large width‐thickness ratios so that local plate buckling is supposed to occur before the attainment of the overall member buckling. A total of 25 members of various lengths, width‐thickness ratios and cross‐sectional shapes (square or rectangular box) were tested to failure under bending as well as under concentric or eccentric axial loading. In the theoretical study a computer program has been developed, based on the effective width concept, to trace up to collapse the load‐deformation characteristics of locally buckled beam‐columns. By comparing the experimental and theoretical results it has been found that the agreement is reasonably good in the columns with large width‐thickness ratios.