Industrial storage system continuous perforated uprights: a combined design proposal

Abstract

Brazilian standards for design of cold-formed steel (ABNT NBR 14762:2010, 2010) and design of pallet racks (ABNT NBR 15524-2:2007, 2007) have different procedures to determine the strength of columns under axial compression, using different buckling curves. This paper aims to evaluate the efficiency of using cold-formed Brazilian standard buckling design curve instead of the formulations of the pallet-rack design standard to study the use viability of the equations in the calculation procedure for computing the uprights compressive strength. This strength was calculated in four ways: one using the original equations of pallet-rack Brazilian standard, and the other three using adaptations of the buckling curve from the cold-formed steel design standard. A theoretical and numerical procedure based on finite element analysis concerning local, global, and distortional buckling and imperfections was performed. Furthermore, experimental results were also consulted to determine the effective area of studied cross-sections considering the effects of local buckling and the presence of continuous perforations. The results show that the proposed modifications are consistently correlated to the results obtained using the original equations of ABNT NBR 15524, indicating the viability of using the buckling curve of ABNT NBR 14762.