Industrial Storage Systems are usually built with cold-formed profiles, and their sections, called "rack section", are specially designed to make its assemblage easier, having perforations throughout their elements to fit connections. This section geometry with holes induces unexpected behavior in other sections. The analysis of these columns is quite complex, and is usually done by computational methods. The main objective is to develop a finite element model to determine the buckling load and mode failure in cold-formed perforated columns. This analysis is carried out using commercial ANSYS software. The choice of element type, mesh refinement and boundary condition settings is carefully done, to ensure that the finite element model reproduces actual column behavior. The model is first calibrated with results from the Generalized Beam Theory (GBT). Finally, finite element results are compared to experimental data. This comparison presented a good agreement, indicating that the model is suitable for the proposed analysis.
Industrial storage systems; thin walled perforated members; finite element analysis; columns
