Structural use of stainless steel
- 4 textbooks and 200+ papers published covering structural testing, numerical modelling and the development of design guidance
- 3 million tonnes- estimated quantity of steel procurement in UK Government infrastructure Pipeline of Projects by 2020
Research into the behaviour and design of stainless steel structures steel structures has been carried out at Imperial College over the last 15 years. The primary focus of the research has been to develop an understanding of the behaviour of stainless steel as a structural material through experimentation and modelling and to generate design methods suitable for incorporation into international design codes. The research has been funded by EPSRC, the European Union and numerous industrial sponsors. Many of the published research papers have featured in the most highly citedarticles list in top journals.
Based directly on research at Imperial College, a range of improvements have been made to key stainless steel design documents including the UK National Annex to the stainless steel Eurocode published in 2009, and subsequent
amendments to Eurocode 3 following Imperial research into the structural performance of lean duplex stainless steel conducted between 2009 and 2012. Furthermore, a new design standard forstainless steel in North America -AISC Design Guide 27 -was published in 2013 and makes very extensive reference to the stainless steel research conducted at Imperial.
With the recent emergence and developments of structural design codes, a growing awareness among structural engineers and architects of its benefits and an increasing availability of structural sections, the use of stainless steel in construction is becoming increasingly widespread. The research at Imperial enables more efficient structural stainless steel designs, bringing about cost savings, more widespread useof the material and a reduction in the use of resources to the benefit of future generations.