Design of aluminum alloy tubular sections subjected to web crippling

The test strengths of aluminum square and rectangular hollow sections under End-Two-Flange (ETF) and Interior-Two-Flange (ITF) loading conditions are compared with the design strengths obtained using the current American Aluminum Design Manual, Australian/New Zealand Standard and European code for aluminum structures. Furthermore, the test strengths are also compared with the design strengths obtained using the unified web crippling equation as specified in the North American Specification for cold-formed steel structural members. It is shown that the design strengths predicted by the aforementioned specifications are either quite conservative or unconservative. Therefore, two different unified web crippling equations for aluminum square and rectangular hollow sections under ETF and ITF loading conditions are proposed. The proposed unified design equation 1 uses the same technique as the North American Specification for the unified web crippling equation with new coefficients of C, CN and Ch determined based on the test results obtained in this study. The proposed unified design equation 2 is similar to the unified web crippling equation in the NAS Specification, and the effects of the ratio N/h is also considered, where N is the bearing length and h is the depth of the flat portion of web. Generally, it is shown that the design strengths predicted by the proposed unified web crippling equation 2 are in good agreement with the test results.