Shear Behaviour of Aluminium Lipped Channel Beams

Abstract

Aluminium sections are increasingly used as primary load bearing members in the building industry due to several advantages including: corrosion resistance, durability, high strength-weight ratio, economical in transportation and ease of fabrication and erection. The popularity of aluminium structures has contributed to the development of structural members and lipped channel beam (LCB) is one of them. However, the vulnerability of aluminium sections in buckling due to its low elastic modulus compared to steel has raised concerns regarding the shear buckling and strengths of aluminium LCBs. Hence a detailed experimental study was conducted to investigate the shear behaviour of aluminium LCBs using 10 different sections with varying heights and thicknesses. The shear test results were compared with the predicted shear capacities by using the current design rules of Eurocode for aluminium structures. It was found that the current design rules are too conservative in predicting the shear strengths and thus new design rules were developed to accurately predict the shear capacity of aluminium LCBs. This paper presents the shear test results and the design rules development.