Local buckling behaviour of stainless steel cross‐sections strengthened by WAAM

Abstract

Wire and arc additive manufacturing (WAAM) combined with traditional manufacturing is attracting increasing attention in the construction industry due to its high material utilisation, cost‐effectiveness, and design flexibility in building scale. This study is aimed to investigate the local buckling behaviour of stainless steel cross‐sections strengthened by WAAM. The stainless steel WAAM material was printed along the member length. Based on the experimentally validated finite element model, the effects of different sizes of WAAM stiffeners on the failure modes and local stability bearing capacity of stainless steel cross‐sections were explored. The results show that WAAM stiffeners can significantly enhance the bearing capacity of stainless steel cross‐sections, and influence the failure modes to different extents. The research findings can provide a basis for the reinforcement of commonly used stainless steel cross‐sections in engineering applications using WAAM technology.