In recent times, light gauge cold-formed steel sections have been used extensively in residential, industrial and commercial buildings as primary load bearing structural components. This is because cold-formed steel sections have a very high strength to weight ratio compared with thicker hot-rolled steel sections, and their manufacturing process is simple and cost-effective. However, these members are susceptible to various buckling modes including local and distortional buckling and their ultimate strength behaviour is governed by these buckling modes. Fire safety design of building structures has received greater attention in recent times due to continuing loss of properties and lives during fires. Hence, there is a need to fully evaluate the performance of light gauge cold-formed steel structures under fire conditions. Past fire research has focused heavily on heavier, hot-rolled steel members. The buckling behaviour of light gauge cold-formed steel members under fire conditions is not well understood. The buckling effects associated with thin steels are significant and have to be taken into account in fire safety design. Therefore, a research project based on extensive experimental and numerical studies was undertaken at the Queensland University of Technology to investigate the distortional buckling behaviour of light gauge cold-formed steel compression members under simulated fire conditions. As the first phase of this research program more than 115 tensile coupon tests of light gauge cold-formed steels including two steel grades and five thicknesses were conducted at elevated temperatures. Accurate mechanical properties including the yield strength, elasticity modulus and stress-strain curves were all determined at elevated temperatures since the deterioration of the mechanical properties is one of the major parameters in the structural design under fire conditions. An appropriate stress-strain model was also developed by considering the inelastic characteristics. The results obtained from the tensile coupon tests were then used to predict the ultimate strength of cold-formed steel compression members. In the second phase of this research more than 170 laboratory experiments were undertaken to investigate the distortional buckling behaviour of light gauge coldformed steel compression members at ambient and elevated temperatures. Two types of cross sections were selected with various thicknesses (nominal thicknesses are 0.6, 0.8, and 0.95 mm) and both low and high strength steels (G250 and G550 steels with minimum yield strengths of 250 and 550 MPa). The experiments were conducted at six different temperatures in the range of 20 to 800°C. A finite element model of the tested compression members was then developed and validated with the help of experimental results. The degradation of mechanical properties with increasing temperatures was included in finite element analyses. An extensive series of parametric analyses was undertaken using the validated finite element model to investigate the effect of all the influential parameters such as section geometry, steel thickness and grade, mechanical properties and temperature. The resulting large data base of ultimate loads of compression members subject to distortional buckling was then used to review the adequacy of the current design rules at ambient temperature. The current design rules were reasonably accurate in general, but in order to improve the accuracy further, this research has developed new design equations to determine the ultimate loads of compression members at ambient temperature. The developed equation was then simply modified by including the relevant mechanical properties at elevated temperatures. It was found that this simple modification based on reduced mechanical properties gave reasonable results, but not at higher temperatures. Therefore, they were further modified to obtain a more accurate design equation at elevated temperatures. The accuracy of new design rules was then verified by comparing their predictions with the results obtained from the parametric study. This thesis presents a description of the experimental and numerical studies undertaken in this research and the results including comparison with simply modified current design rules. It describes the laboratory experiments at ambient and elevated temperatures. It also describes the finite element models of cold-formed steel compression members developed in this research that included the appropriate mechanical properties, initial geometric imperfections and residual stresses. Finally, it presents the details of the new design equations proposed for the light gauge coldformed steel compression members subjected to distortional buckling effects at elevated temperatures.

Cold-formed steel members have been widely used in residential, industrial and commercial buildings as primary load bearing structural elements and non-load bearing structural elements (partitions) due to their advantages such as higher strength to weight ratio over the other structural materials such as hot-rolled steel, timber and concrete. Cold-formed steel members are often made from thin steel sheets and hence they are more susceptible to various buckling modes. Generally short columns are susceptible to local or distortional buckling while long columns to flexural or flexural-torsional buckling. Fire safety design of building structures is an essential requirement as fire events can cause loss of property and lives. Therefore it is essential to understand the fire performance of light gauge cold-formed steel structures under fire conditions. The buckling behaviour of cold-formed steel compression members under fire conditions is not well investigated yet and hence there is a lack of knowledge on the fire performance of cold-formed steel compression members. Current cold-formed steel design standards do not provide adequate design guidelines for the fire design of cold-formed steel compression members. Therefore a research project based on extensive experimental and numerical studies was undertaken at the Queensland University of Technology to investigate the buckling behaviour of light gauge cold-formed steel compression members under simulated fire conditions. As the first phase of this research, a detailed review was undertaken on the mechanical properties of light gauge cold-formed steels at elevated temperatures and the most reliable predictive models for mechanical properties and stress-strain models based on detailed experimental investigations were identified. Their accuracy was verified experimentally by carrying out a series of tensile coupon tests at ambient and elevated temperatures. As the second phase of this research, local buckling behaviour was investigated based on the experimental and numerical investigations at ambient and elevated temperatures. First a series of 91 local buckling tests was carried out at ambient and elevated temperatures on lipped and unlipped channels made of G250-0.95, G550-0.95, G250-1.95 and G450-1.90 cold-formed steels. Suitable finite element models were then developed to simulate the experimental conditions. These models were converted to ideal finite element models to undertake detailed parametric study. Finally all the ultimate load capacity results for local buckling were compared with the available design methods based on AS/NZS 4600, BS 5950 Part 5, Eurocode 3 Part 1.2 and the direct strength method (DSM), and suitable recommendations were made for the fire design of cold-formed steel compression members subject to local buckling. As the third phase of this research, flexural-torsional buckling behaviour was investigated experimentally and numerically. Two series of 39 flexural-torsional buckling tests were undertaken at ambient and elevated temperatures. The first series consisted 2800 mm long columns of G550-0.95, G250-1.95 and G450-1.90 cold-formed steel lipped channel columns while the second series contained 1800 mm long lipped channel columns of the same steel thickness and strength grades. All the experimental tests were simulated using a suitable finite element model, and the same model was used in a detailed parametric study following validation. Based on the comparison of results from the experimental and parametric studies with the available design methods, suitable design recommendations were made. This thesis presents a detailed description of the experimental and numerical studies undertaken on the mechanical properties and the local and flexural-torsional bucking behaviour of cold-formed steel compression member at ambient and elevated temperatures. It also describes the currently available ambient temperature design methods and their accuracy when used for fire design with appropriately reduced mechanical properties at elevated temperatures. Available fire design methods are also included and their accuracy in predicting the ultimate load capacity at elevated temperatures was investigated. This research has shown that the current ambient temperature design methods are capable of predicting the local and flexural-torsional buckling capacities of cold-formed steel compression members at elevated temperatures with the use of reduced mechanical properties. However, the elevated temperature design method in Eurocode 3 Part 1.2 is overly conservative and hence unsuitable, particularly in the case of flexural-torsional buckling at elevated temperatures.