Ultimate flexural strength of aluminum sections

A significant proportion of extruded aluminum sections have capacities beyond yield strength. In this study, the ultimate inelastic capacity is investigated for laterally supported aluminum flexural members symmetrical about bending axis. The topics studied include ultimate compressive stresses for component plate elements of flexural members, ultimate shape factors, and improvements to the existing weighted average strength approach. A parametric study using finite element analysis as well as physical tests was conducted to validate the approaches developed in this study. The study shows that the proposed approaches predict the ultimate inelastic flexural strength of aluminum members accurately. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.