Estimation of Collapse Load for

Thin-Walled Rectangular Tubes

Under Bending
In two recent papers, the authors investigated the bending collapse load of rectangular
tubes consisting of a perfectly elastoplastic material. From these investigations, it is
D. H. Chen found that the collapse may also occur due to the buckling of web in a rectangular tube
Faculty of Civil Engineering and Mechanics, under bending, when the tube has a cross section with a large aspect ratio of web to
Jiangsu University, flange b/a. In order to evaluate the collapse load of such tubes under bending, the effec-
Zhenjiang 212013, China tive width concept given by Rusch and Lindner for a plate compressed with stress gradi-
ent was used to calculate the postbuckling strength of the tube web. However, in the
K. Masuda1 solution of Rusch and Lindner, the plate is supported at only one longitudinal edge with
Faculty of Engineering, the other longitudinal edge being free. This boundary condition is obviously different
University of Toyama, from that of the tube web. This paper complements the previous work by addressing the
Toyama 9308555, Japan postbuckling strength of the web under stress gradients. The postbuckling strength of the
e-mail: masuda@eng.u-toyama.ac.jp web under stress gradients is also calculated using the effective width concept given in
AS/NZS 4600 standard and North American specification (NAS) for a plate compressed
with stress gradient and supported at both two longitudinal edges. Moreover, the web
slenderness also affects the condition for reaching cross-sectional fully plastic yielding
when the web is wider. A new method is proposed to predict the maximum moment con-
sidering the effect of web slenderness on the cross-sectional fully plastic yielding. The
validity of the collapse load estimation is checked by the results of FEM (finite element
method) numerical analysis. [DOI: 10.1115/1.4032159]

Keywords: thin-walled tube, bending, rectangular tube, buckling, collapse load

1 Introduction in the previous research by the authors of Ref. [9]. It seems that
the prediction based on the solution of Rusch and Lindner [10] is
Rectangular tubes are widely used as structural members in
reasonable compared with the results obtained from FEM. How-
numerous applications such as automobiles, trains, vehicles, air-
ever, in the solution of Rusch and Lindner [10], the plate is sup-
craft, offshore structure, etc. The primary collapses of thin-walled
ported at only one longitudinal edge with the other longitudinal
rectangular tubes are axial and bending collapses. Structural
edge being free. This boundary condition is obviously different
designers are often required to estimate the collapse load of rec-
from that of the tube web.
tangular tubes under axial and bending load.
This paper complements the previous work by addressing the
Although the real loading is seldom pure axial or bending, pure
postbuckling strength of the web under stress gradients. That is,
axial and bending collapses of square thin-walled tubes have been
apart from the solution based on the effective width concept given
subjected to extensive studies (for example, Refs. [1–7]). The
by Rusch and Lindner [10], in this paper the postbuckling strength
studies on collapse of tubes under pure axial or bending load give
of the web under stress gradients is also calculated using the effec-
fundamental understanding to collapse mechanism of the tubes
tive width concept given in AS/NZS 4600 standard [12] and NAS
under combined bending and compression.
[13] for a plate compressed with stress gradient and supported at
A commonly used method for predicting the collapse load or
both two longitudinal edges. The stress distributions on the tube
the maximum moment of rectangular tubes subjected to pure
web after buckling obtained from AS/NZS 4600 standard [12] and
bending was proposed by Kecman [5]. According to Kecman’s
NAS [13], and obtained from the solution of Rusch and Lindner
study, there are two types of collapses. The first type is a collapse
[10] are investigated by comparing with FEM numerical results.
due to buckling at the compression flange, and the second type is
The validity of the collapse load estimation is checked by the
a collapse due to plastic yielding at the flanges. However, when
results of FEM numerical analysis.
the web is wider than the flange, collapse due to buckling at the
Moreover, in Kecman’s method [5] the condition for the cross-
compression web may occur.
sectional fully plastic yielding of tubes under bending is depend-
In two recent papers [8,9], the authors investigated the maxi-
ent on the flange slenderness only. However, it is very likely that
mum moment at collapse of rectangular tubes subjected to bend-
the web slenderness also affects the cross-sectional fully plastic
ing. From these investigations, it is found that the collapse may
yielding when the web is wider. Therefore, in the present paper a
also occur due to the buckling of web in a rectangular tube under
new method is also proposed to predict the maximum moment
bending, when the tube has a cross section with a large aspect
considering the effect of web slenderness on the cross-sectional
ratio of web to flange b/a [8]. In order to evaluate the collapse
fully plastic yielding.
load of such tubes under bending, the effective width concept,
given by Rusch and Lindner [10], based on the study of Brune
[11], for a plate compressed with stress gradient was used to cal-
2 Numerical Analysis Method
culate the postbuckling strength of the web under stress gradients
In the present paper, thin-walled rectangular tubes under pure
1
Corresponding author.
bending are considered, and the FEM analysis software MSC.MARC
Manuscript received October 11, 2015; final manuscript received December 1, [14] is used in numerical simulation for obtaining the maximum
2015; published online December 21, 2015. Assoc. Editor: Nick Aravas. bending moment of tubes under bending. Figure 1 shows the

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2
2a þ b þ ae 3 ab þ 2
Mmax ¼ rs tb (3)
3ða þ bÞ
for Case 1
rbuca  rs
Mmax ¼ Mel þ ðMpl  Mel Þ (4)
rs
for Case 2, and
Fig. 1 Rectangular tube to which a pure bending moment is
applied
Mmax ¼ Mpl (5)

for Case 3. In the above equations

analyzed rectangular tubes. The effects of various geometric  
parameters, such as tube thickness t, width of the flange a, and width rbuca
ae ¼ a 0:7 þ 0:3 (6)
of the web b, on bending collapse were investigated. The tube rs
material used in the analysis was assumed to be a homogeneous and
isotropic elastic perfectly plastic material that conforms to von and Mel and Mpl are the maximum elastic moment
Mises yield conditions. In the present study, the material mechanical  
properties are assumed to be: Young’s modulus E ¼ 72.4 GPa, the b
yield stress rs ¼ 72.4 MPa, and Poisson’s ratio  ¼ 0.3. Mel ¼ rs tb a þ (7)
3
In the present study, the updated Lagrange method was used to
formulate the geometric nonlinear behavior, and the algorithm and the cross-sectional fully plastic bending moment
based on the Newton–Raphson method and the return-mapping  
method were used to solve the nonlinear equation. The rectangular b
tubes were modeled using four-node quadrilateral thickness shell Mpl ¼ rs tb a þ (8)
2
elements (Element type 75). The elements divided the wall width
into at least 20 sublengths and divided the axial length such that respectively.
the elements become almost square.
In addition, the length of tubes used in the analysis was
assumed to be large enough to neglect the influence of the bound- 3.2 Discussion About the Applicability of Kecman’s
ary conditions. The ratio of the length and web width L/b was set Method. Figure 3 shows the results of the FEM numerical analy-
to L/b > 6. ses for tubes with aspect ratios b/a ¼ 1, 2, and 3, and the corre-
sponding values obtained from Eqs. (3), (4), and (5). As shown in
the figures, the prediction of Kecman’s method is well in agree-
ment with the results of FEM when the relative thickness t/a is not
3 Investigation and Discussion very small and the aspect ratio of web to flange b/a is not large,
3.1 Kecman’s Method for Predicting the Maximum Bend- for example, when the tube relative thickness is about t/a  0.008
ing Moment of Rectangular Tubes. Kecman [5] focused on for b/a ¼ 1 and is about t/a  0.016 for b/a ¼ 2. However, for large
buckling and plastic yielding at the compression flange and pro- aspect ratios, there is a large discrepancy between the values of
posed a formula to predict the collapse load or the maximum maximum moment obtained from Kecman’s method and the FEM
moment Mmax. Depending on the value of buckling stress rbuca numerical results.
of the compression flange Figure 4 shows the distributions of axial stress rx on cross sec-
tion at the maximum moment obtained from FEM numerical anal-
 2 ysis by dashed lines for three rectangular tubes to which
ka p2 E t
rbuca ¼ (1) Kecman’s method is not applicable. In Fig. 4, the distributions of
12ð1   2 Þ a axial stress obtained from Kecman’s method are also shown by
three cases are distinguished, as shown in Fig. 2. In Eq. (1), ka is solid lines, which correspond to Case 1, Case 2, and Case 3 for
the buckling coefficient, which Kecman assumed to be Figs. 4(a), 4(b), and 4(c). respectively, because the buckling stress
rbuc–a for Figs. 4(a)–4(c) are rbuc–a ¼ 0.30rs < rs,
a rbuc–a ¼ 2.83rs > 2rs, and rbuc–a ¼ 2.80rs > 2rs, respectively.
ka ¼ 5:23 þ 0:16 (2) It is seen from Fig. 4(a) that compression buckling arises both the
b
flange and web, and thus the axial stresses on the web at the maxi-
The maximum moment Mmax for the rectangular tube is given mum moment are less than that obtained by Kecman’s method, as
by indicted by the arrows in the figure. Based on Fig. 4(a), the

Fig. 2 Schematic representation of axial stress distribution used in Kecman’s method: (a)
Case 1: rbuc–a < rs; (b) Case 2: rs £ rbuc–a < 2rs; and (c) Case 3: rbuc–a  2rs

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Fig. 3 Comparison of Kecman’s method and the FEM analysis
cross-sectional stress distribution under the maximum moment cor-
responding to this collapse mode can be schematically represented
by Fig. 5(a) and is called Case 4 in the present study.
As shown in Fig. 4(b), although the buckling stress of the flange
rbuc–a obtained from Eq. (1) is larger than the twice of the yield-
ing stress, rbuc–a ¼ 2.83rs > 2rs, a plastic yielding region is not
found in the web. Moreover, the axial stress in the web does not
change linearly and decreases greatly in the compression portion
of the web. This suggests that compression buckling arises at the
web. Therefore, the axial stress distribution at the maximum
moment differs greatly from that obtained by Kecman’s method,
as indicted by the arrows in the figure. Based on Fig. 4(b), the
cross-sectional stress distribution under the maximum moment
corresponding to this collapse mode can be schematically repre-
sented in Fig. 5(b) and is called Case 5 in the present study.
Also, it is seen from Fig. 4(c), compared with Fig. 4(b), that in
the web no buckling occurs but plastic yielding regions can be
observed. However, the plastic yielding is not generated to all the
web, although the buckling stress of the flange rbuc–a obtained
from Eq. (1) is larger than the twice of the yielding stress,
rbuc–a ¼ 2.80rs > 2rs. Thus, the stress distribution is different
from the cross-sectional fully plastic yielding, as indicted by the
arrows in the figure. This suggests that even if a compression
buckling does not arise at the web, the web slenderness also
affects the cross-sectional fully plastic yielding of the tube under
Fig. 4 Axial stress distribution on cross section at the maximum moment: (a) t 5 0.4 mm, a 5 50 mm, b 5 100 mm; (b)
t 5 0.5 mm, a 5 20 mm, b 5 100 mm; and (c) t 5 1.2 mm, a 5 50 mm, b 5 150 mm
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Fig. 5 Schematic representation of axial stress distribution
with considering the buckling at web when the maximum
moment occurs: (a) Case 4: rbuc–a < rs and (b) Case 5: rbuc–a > rs
bending. That is, the conditions of generating the cross-sectional
fully plastic yielding are dependent on not only the flange slender-
ness but also the web slenderness. In Kecman’s method, the con-
ditions for the cross-sectional fully plastic yielding are determined
by only the ratio of rbuc–a to rs.
3.3 The Maximum Bending Moment for Tube With Large
Aspect Ratio of b/a. In bending deformation of a rectangular tube
having a cross section with a large aspect ratio b/a, buckling can
also occur in the web, and thus the maximum moment of a rectan-
gular tube is determined by buckling in the tube web. Moreover,
even if a buckling does not occur at the web, the slenderness of
web has still to be taken into account, because it may influence
the condition for the cross-sectional fully plastic yielding.
3.3.1 Effect of the Web Slenderness on the Buckling at Web.
Bending stress is applied to the web of tube. The problem of web
buckling is expressed in Fig. 6. In Fig. 6(a), displacement in the
out-of-plane direction (displacement in the z direction) is fixed at
both longitudinal edges (BC and DA) in a plate ABCD of width b
and thickness t; the bending and compression, which are linearly
distributed on both edges (AB and CD), are applied through dis-
placement control. For the ultimate loading after buckling, the dis-
tribution of compressive stress rx along the width direction is
characterized by two effective widths, be1 and be2, as shown in
Fig. 6(b). In the figure, compressive stress is denoted by a positive
value.
There have been many reports on the elastic buckling of a plate
to which bending stress is applied and on the stress distribution at
maximum load [10,15–19]. For example, the effective widths be1
and be2 for a plate under stress gradient shown in Fig. 5 are given
in AS/NZS 4600 standard [12] and NAS [13] as follows:
MARCH 2016, Vol. 83 / 031012-3
 kb ¼ 4 þ 2ð1  wÞ3 þ 2ð1  wÞ (13)

be is given by

be ¼ q b (14)

q is called the reduction factor and is given by

1
q¼ (15)
k
which is proposed by von Karman et al. [20]. The following for-
mula for q:
 
1 0:22
q¼ 1 (16)
k k
is also proposed by Winter [21] and is well used for design
Fig. 6 Plate subjected to compression and bending: (a) ana- specifications. The reason of Eq. (15) modified to Eq. (16) in
lyzed model and (b) axial compressive stress rx distribution on actual design is mainly due to the fact that the maximum load
E–E cross section in (a) capacity of a buckling plate is reduced greatly by imperfec-
8 tions when the buckling stress is close to the yield stress [22].
> be Therefore, Eq. (15) is desirable for the present study because
>
> be1 ¼
>
< 3w the influence of imperfections is not taken into consideration
( (9) here. Moreover, in order to consider continuity of the load
>
> be =2 when w  0:236 capability of a web with k ¼ 1, for which elastic buckling does
>
: be2 ¼ b  b
>
when w > 0:236 not occur because rbuc–b ¼ rs, we apply Eq. (15) to the present
e e1
study.
In addition, be1 þ be2 shall not exceed the compression portion of Equation (9) is applied to the webs investigated in Figs. 4(a)
the web. and 4(b) to determine the corresponding effective width; the stress
Here, be is given in Eq. (14) later, and w is ratio of f1 and f2 . f1 distributions on the web based on the obtained effective width
and f2 are web stresses shown in Fig. 6(b) using Eq. (9) are shown in Figs. 7(a) and 8(a). In Fig. 7(a), the
stress distribution obtained using Eq. (9) is qualitatively corre-
f2 sponding with the redistribution of the compression stress after
w¼ (10) buckling obtained from the FEM numerical analysis. However,
f1
in Fig. 8(a), even though there is a fall of the compression
k is defined by stress in the compression portion of the web after buckling as
shown by the FEM analysis, the stress distribution obtained
rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi from Eq. (9) looks like a straight line, because the effective
rs widths be1 and be2 determined by Eq. (9) satisfy the following
k¼ (11)
rbucb equation:

the elastic buckling stress of web rbuc–b is calculated as follows:

b
 2 be1 þ be2 ¼ (17)
kb p2 E t 1w
rbucb ¼ (12)
12ð1   2 Þ b
which means be1 þ be2 is equal to the compression portion of the
where the buckling coefficient kb is given by web.

Fig. 7 Stress distribution of web when the ultimate load is reached for the tube used in
Fig. 4(a): (a) comparison with Eq. (9) and (b) comparison with Eq. (18)

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 Fig. 8 Stress distribution of web when the ultimate load is reached for the tube used in
Fig. 4(b): (a) comparison with Eq. (9) and (b) comparison with Eq. (18)
In fact, when the effective width is determined using Eq. (9),
there are many instances in which Eq. (17) is satisfied. Figure 9
shows various possible values of buckling stress of web, for which
Eq. (17) is satisfied, for various assumed stress ratios w by solid
line, as evaluated in Eq. (9) with q defined in Eq. (15). In Fig. 9,
the dashed line shows the corresponding result if q was calculated
using Eq. (16); it is seen from the dashed line that even if Eq. (16)
is used for q the instances in which Eq. (17) is satisfied still exist.
For these instances, the redistribution of the compression stress
after buckling cannot be expressed by the effective width obtained
from Eq. (9); this means that there is a possibility of giving a too
large load capability of web from Eq. (9). Therefore, here as a
comparison we also use another solution given by Rusch and
Lindner [10] to evaluate the effective width of web after buckling
[9]. The solution in Ref. [10] is given for the same plate shown in
Fig. 6(a) but with one of the two longitudinal edges BC
being free. Although the free boundary condition at the longitudi-
nal edge BC is different from the actual situation of web constitut-
ing the tube, the effect of the boundary condition at the edge BC
is assumed to be small, because the edge BC is under tension
stress.
Fig. 9 Various possible buckling stress rbuc–b and stress
ratios w with Eq. (17) satisfied
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According to the solution published in Ref. [10] the effective
widths be1 and be2 are given by
8
>
< be1 ¼ be  be2
be2 0:226 (18)
>
: ¼ 2
b k
where
be q
¼ (19)
b 1w
Here, k and q are calculated by Eqs. (11) and (15), respectively,
the buckling stress rbuc–b is determined by Eq. (12) with kb deter-
mined as follows:
kb ¼ 1:7  5w þ 17:1w2 (20)
Figures 7(b) and 8(b) show the comparisons of stress distribu-
tions on the web obtained from FEM and from Eq. (18) for the
tubes used in Figs. 4(a) and 4(b), from which it is seen that the
redistribution of stress after web buckling can be approximately
expressed using Eq. (18). Comparing (a) and (b) in Fig. 7, it is
seen that for the stress distribution on the web in the tube used in
Fig. 4(a), Eq. (18) is inferior in accuracy to Eq. (9). However, as
shown in Fig. 8, which shows the stress distributions on the web
for the tube used in Fig. 4(b), although the fall of the compression
stress in the compression portion of the web after buckling is not
expressed by the solution obtained from Eq. (9), it is expressed by
the solution from Eq. (18). In fact, it is seen from Eq. (19) that for
the stress distribution on the web as obtained from Eq. (18) the
length of be1 þ be2 is always smaller than the compression portion
of the web.
3.3.2 Effect of the Web Slenderness on the Cross-Sectional
Fully Plastic Yielding. For tubes with large aspect ratio of web to
flange, as an effect of web slenderness on the tube collapse we
considered the possible buckling of web and thus investigated the
existence of Case 4 and Case 5, as shown above. Hereafter, we
consider the other effect of web slenderness on the tube collapse,
namely, the effect of web slenderness on the cross-sectional fully
plastic yielding.
As shown in Fig. 3, for tubes with b/a ¼ 3, there is a large dis-
crepancy between Kecman’s prediction and the FEM analysis.
When the tubes are very thin (for example, when t/a < 0.02 for
b/a ¼ 3) it is thought that the error generating is brought about
because the web buckling was not taken into consideration in
MARCH 2016, Vol. 83 / 031012-5
 Kecman’s method. However, for the relatively thick tubes, the maximum moment can be evaluated through the value of bs as
cause which produces the error is clearly different, because buck- follows:
ling does not occur in such tubes. For example, for the tube with  
b/a ¼ 3 and t/a ¼ 0.024 shown in Fig. 4(c), even though the buck- 1 2 
ling stress of flange rbuc–a calculated by Eq. (1) is rbuc–a/rs ffi for Case 2 : Mmax ¼ rs t 2b þ 2bbs  b2s þ ab (25)
6
2.8 > 2, the maximum moment Mmax as evaluated by FEM numer-
ical analysis is Mmax/Mpl ffi 0.9, which is not in agreement with Substituting Eqs. (7), (8), and (25) into Eq. (4), bs is obtained as
Eq. (5) for the case of rbuc–a/rs  2 in Kecman’s method. Here, 8 sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
buckling does not occur in the web either because rbuc–b/rs ffi >  2 
>
< t pffiffiffi 
1.4 > 1. Also, it is seen from Fig. 4(c) that the stress distribution bs 1 2 for tea < t < 2tea
on the cross section is different from that shown in Fig. 2(c) for ¼ tea (26)
b > >  pffiffiffi 
Case 3 corresponding to the cross-sectional fully plastic yielding. :1 for t  2tea
This fact means that the condition for reaching the cross-sectional
fully plastic yielding is also related to the web slenderness. where tea is the flange thickness for which elastic buckling stress
In order to consider the effect of the web slenderness on the rbuc–a obtained from Eq. (1) is equal to the yielding stress rs and
tube collapse, the condition of rbuc–a  2rs for Case 3 or for is given by
Mmax ¼ Mpl in Kecman’s method is replaced in the present study
sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffirffiffiffiffiffi
by the following condition:
12ð1   2 Þ rs
( tea ¼ a (27)
rbuca  2rs ka p 2 E
(21)
rbucb  2rs Equation (25) means that the bs is determined by the flange slen-
derness only when Eq. (22) is satisfied. So when Eq. (23) is satis-
Here, rbuc–b is determined assumed w ¼ 1. fied, we also suppose that the bs can be determined by the web
When Eq. (21) is not satisfied, that is, when slenderness only as follows:
( 8
rs < rbuca < 2rs sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
 2
>
> t  pffiffiffi 
rbucb  2rs
(22) bs < 1  2  for teb < t < 2teb
¼ teb (28)
b > >  pffiffiffi 
:1 for t  2t
or eb

(
rbuca  2rs where teb is the web thickness for which the elastic buckling stress
(23) is equal to the yielding stress and is given by
rs < rbucb < 2rs
sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffirffiffiffiffiffi
or 12ð1   2 Þ rs
teb ¼ b (29)
( kb p 2 E
rs < rbuca < 2rs
(24) Furthermore, we assume that this technique can also be used to
rs < rbucb < 2rs evaluate the maximum moment in the case when Eq. (24) is satis-
fied. That is, Mmax is determined from the smaller one from both
the stress on cross section is expressed by Case 2 shown in Fig. values of bs given in Eq. (26) and in Eq. (28). Validity of this
2(b). This fact can be confirmed from Fig. 4(c) for which Eq. (23) assumption can be understood from Fig. 10 shown later, in which
is satisfied. for the tube with t/a ¼ 0.016 Eq. (24) is satisfied: rbuc–a ¼ 1.23rs
It is seen from the cross-sectional stress distribution shown and rbuc–b ¼ 1.39rs. Therefore, when using Eq. (25) to determine
in Fig. 4(c) that the maximum moment in this case is depend- Mmax for Case 2, the value of bs is calculated using Eq. (26) if
ent on the plastic yielding region in the web. Denoting the
length of this plastic yielding region by bs (see Fig. 2(b)), the tea > teb (30)

Fig. 10 Flow chart of a new method proposed in the present study for predicting the
maximum moment of tubes under pure bending

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 and w ¼ 1, respectively. Moreover, it is notable that in calculat-
ing the maximum bending moment for Case 4 and Case 5 the
stress ratio w is also unknown, which shall be determined from
the conditions of pure bending through trial and error. Using the
determined value of w, the maximum moment for Case 4 and
Case 5 is calculated as follows:

for Case 4 :
Mmax w 2
1  w 3

¼ b þ d12  d22 þ b þ d13  d23 þ 2ae b

rs t 2 3b
(34)

for Case 5 :
Mmax w 2
1  w 3
(35)
¼ b þ d12  d22 þ b þ d13  d23 þ 2ab
rs t 2 3b

In Eqs. (34) and (35)

w
d1 ¼ be2 þ b; d2 ¼ b  be1 (36)
w1

Fig. 11 Prediction of the maximum bending moment Mmax for In Figs. 11, 12, and 13, the maximum moment predicted by the
rectangular tubes with b/a 5 1 present method is compared with that obtained from the FEM
numerical analysis. As a result of the prediction method proposed
in the present paper, both the analyses using Eq. (9) and using
and is calculated using Eq. (28) if Eq. (18) for calculating the effective width are shown, respec-
tively; the former is denoted as “method-1” and the latter is
tea < teb (31) denoted as “method-2.”
The case number of the collapse corresponding to each thick-
Using tea and teb the condition of Eq. (21) can be rewritten as ness is also shown in the figures. In Case 2, there are two possible
pffiffiffi pffiffiffi subcases: (1) tea > teb as shown in Figs. 10 and 12 and (2) tea < teb
t  2tea and t  2teb (32)
as shown in Fig. 13; the maximum moment is determined by Eq.
(26) for the former and by Eq. (28) for the latter. As shown in
3.4 Estimation of Collapse Load for Thin-Walled Rectan-
these figures, Eqs. (26) and (28) give good prediction to the corre-
gular Tubes Under Bending. The present method for predicting
sponding subcase, respectively.
the maximum moment of tubes under pure bending is summarized
For Case 4 and Case 5, although each result obtained from the
and is shown by a flow chart in Fig. 10, from which it is seen that
method-1 and the method-2 is approximately in agreement with
both the possible buckling at web and the effect of web slender-
the analysis of FEM, it is found that there is a gap in the results
ness on the cross-sectional fully plastic yielding are taken into
between method-1 and method-2. When the buckling stress of the
account in the method. In the flow chart rbuc–b,1 and rbuc–b,2 are
web rbuc–b is close to the yielding stress rs the method-1 gives a
the buckling stress of web assuming the stress ratio w to be
too large prediction as compared with the FEM analysis, reflecting
b  y1 ae þ b the fact that be1 þ be2 given by Eq. (9) may be equal to the com-
w¼ ¼ (33) pression portion of the web as shown in Fig. 9. However, for small
y1 aþb

Fig. 12 Prediction of the maximum bending moment Mmax for Fig. 13 Prediction of the maximum bending moment Mmax for
rectangular tubes with b/a 5 2 rectangular tubes with b/a 5 3

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 t/a when rbuc–b is very much less than the yielding stress, method-
1 is more accurate compared with method-2. Combining the
advantages of these two methods, it seems from Figs. 11, 12, and
13 that the smaller one from both solutions obtained from
method-1 and obtained from method-2 is in good agreement with
the FEM analysis for all of Case 4 and Case 5.
4 Conclusion
In the present paper, bending collapse of rectangular tubes was
investigated using the FEM, and the previous work on this topic
by the authors of Refs. [8,9] was complemented by addressing the
postbuckling strength of the web under stress gradients and the
effect of the web slenderness on the cross-sectional fully plastic
yielding. The following conclusions were obtained.
(1) In order to predict accurately the maximum moments of
rectangular tubes with large aspect ratio of web to flange,
the slenderness of web has to be taken into account. In
bending deformation of a rectangular tube having a cross
section with a large aspect ratio b/a, buckling can also
occur in the web. Moreover, even if a buckling does not
occur at the web, the slenderness of web has still to be
taken into account, because it may influence the condition
for the cross-sectional fully plastic yielding.
(2) A method for predicting the maximum moment is proposed
considering both the possible buckling at web and the effect
of web slenderness on the cross-sectional fully plastic
yielding in bending deformation of a rectangular tube. The
predicted maximum moment agrees with the FEM results.
(3) In considering web buckling, two methods are proposed to
evaluate the effective width after buckling: one is based on
the solution given in AS/NZS 4600 standard [12] and NAS
[13] for buckling of a plate under stress gradient with both
two longitudinal edges simply supported and is called
method-1 here, and the other is based on the solution given
by Rusch and Lindner [10] for buckling of a plate under
stress gradient with one longitudinal edge being free and is
called method-2 here. When the buckling stress of the web
rbuc–b is close to the yielding stress rs the prediction given
by method-1 is too large as compared with FEM analysis,
and when rbuc–b is very much less than rs method-1 is bet-
ter in accuracy of prediction than method-2. And it is nota-
ble that the smaller one from both solutions obtained from
method-1 and obtained from method-2 is in good agree-
ment with FEM analysis for all of Case 4 and Case 5.
(4) A new condition for the cross-sectional fully plastic yield-
ing was proposed including the effect of the web slender-
ness, and an analysis using bs, which shows the length of
031012-8 / Vol. 83, MARCH 2016
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plastic yielding region in the web, was found to be effective
in evaluating the maximum moment in Case 2.
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