Experimental campaign on components of steel frames for elevators

Architectural barriers are a very topical issue that affects the entire population, not just people with disabilities. In recent years, there is more and more talk of design of private and public spaces without architectural barriers that can hinder anyone's mobility. All of this concerns both new and existing structures. In new constructions the theme of accessibility is considered since the initial phase of the design process while in existing structures, depending on the specificity of the building ‘ad hoc’ solutions need to be identified and appropriately integrated into the building systems. In this last field, the problem of vertical accessibility is frequently solved by elevators which are frequently made of thin‐walled steel structural elements.

This work presents an experimental‐numerical investigation of thin‐walled profiles used for building steel elevator. The performance of two different cross‐sections under compression was studied. At this aim stub‐column tests of specimens having an axial force applied to the cross‐section centroid and with different eccentricities from the centroid were performed. Alongside the experimental study, a large numerical study was developed by using refined finite element models to simulate the experimental results. Numerical and experimental studies made it possible to draw the M_N sections domain which were compared with the theoretical ones obtained on the basis of the formulas provided by EC3‐1‐3. It is shown that for the considered profiles, the expression prosed by EC3‐1‐3 is from the safe side.