IJASCSE, Vol 2, Issue 1, 2013 www.ijascse.in Page 67 Feb. 28 Theoretical study of axially compressed Cold Formed Steel Sections Sreedhar Kalavagunta , Sivakumar Naganathan, and Kamal Nasharuddin Bin Mustapha Universiti Tenaga Nasional, Jalan IKRAM-UNITEN, 43000, Department of Civil Engineering, Kajang, Selangor, Malaysia. Abstract— Conceptual and finite element analysis oriented design of cold formed steel columns are presented in this paper. Total four 1 meter channel lipped section with thickness of 1, 1.2, 1.5 and 1.9 are tested. All columns were tested under a pure axial load, Conceptual design results are compared with finite element analysis for axially loaded compression members. The results provide useful information regarding allowable load estimation of cold formed steel column section. Based on the results, design recommendations were proposed. The proposed design approach is recommended for the design of complex shape of cold formed steel section, where design rules are not available in standards. Keywords-Cold formed steel, Axial Stress, Design Strength, Effective Width Method, Direct Strength method. I. INTRODU CTION Cold Formed Steel (CFS) members are widely used in building constructions, bridge constructions, storage racks, highway products, drainage facilities, grain bins, transmission towers, car bodies, railway coaches and various types of equipment. These sections are cold formed from carbon or low alloy steel sheet, strip, plate, or flat bar in cold- rolling machines or by press brake or by bending brake operations. The thicknesses of cold formed steel members do usually range from 0.378 mm to 6.35 mm. CFS sections gained special attention in research due to its major advantages like flexibility in drawing to any shape, high strength and stiffness, ease of prefabrication and mass production, fast and easy erection, installation etc. In the recent decades, the use of Cold formed steel has increased widely in the construction industry because of its unique characteristics and advantages. The behaviors of CFS structures are influenced by effects such as Local Buckling, Distortional Buckling and Global Buckling [1, 2] which arises due to the Slenderness of members. This makes the design and analysis often more complex. The recent research and investigation on cold formed steel shows advancements in design specification and manufacturing processes for most of the standard sections [3,4,5,6,7]. The Effective Width Method and Direct Strength Method (DSM) are the only two basic designs that are accessible now by the design codes including North American Specification for Cold-Formed Steel Structural members (AISI-2007) [8]. Effective Width method can take into account the interaction between Local and Lateral buckling. However, as structural shapes became more complex with additional lips and intermediate stiffeners, the accurate computation of the effective widths of individual elements of the complex shapes becomes more difficult and inaccurate. In order to overwhelm this problem, the Direct Strength method (DSM) was developed. However, finite element analysis like ANSYS, ABAQUS etc. are the best options for the design of CFS with any cross sectional shapes, but most of the structural consulting firms are using basic FEA software's like STAAD.Pro, SAP2000, RAM Structural System, STRAP etc., This paper presents a comparative study of cold formed steel column