PREDICTION OF BUCKLING OF RHS COLUMNS USING FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSIS METHOD

In a structural system, column is a vertical structural member whose longitudinal
dimension exceeds the lateral dimension of the section. The column failure modes
include short column compression failure and long column buckling failure. In the
overall design process mechanics, column buckling is a special and inquisitive
emphasis with which the loss is not attributed to the material strength. As in the
factory plants and process facilities, it is a common practice to use RHS Columns
as structural elements, however the behavioral changes on buckling of RHS
Columns as consequence of combination of variations parameters such the
boundary conditions, wall thickness, columns lengths and especially on structural
openings in the cut-out configuration, shape, size, location and numbers are not
well understood. Thus, in this project, parametric study was conducted to predict
the buckling of RHS Columns with varying parameters using Finite Elements
Analysis and the finding are compared results obtained using the proposed
approach in Eurocode 3.