The strength of type 3CR12 stainless steel point symmetric angles as compression members

The development of design criteria for a given material requires a thorough knowledge and understanding of the behaviour of the material and structural members fabricated from that material. This paper is devoted to the study of the behaviour of singly symmetric angle columns hot-rolled from Type 3CR12 corrosion resisting steel. This steel is a modified Type 409 stainless steel, developed and manufactured as a 12% chromium containing corrosion resisting steel, by the specialty steel producing company, Columbus Stainless in South Africa. It is concluded in this study that stainless steels such as Type 3CR12 steel show gradual yielding behaviour and that the design specifications for carbon steels might not be applicable for this steel. Although the experimental results compare reasonable with the predicted design equations when the tangent modulus approach is used, the results also compare well with the predicted design equations when the American, Canadian and South African hot-rolled design specifications are used.