LAUSR

Abstract In this study, the buckling behaviour of a cable-stiffened steel column with a four-branch pin-connected crossarm system is investigated. A new geometric imperfection distribution is constructed with a nonlinear buckling analysis to trigger interactive buckling, and a method to obtain the actual load carrying capacity of the cable-stiffened steel column is proposed. The effects of different parameters, including the stay diameter, crossarm length, pretension in cables, and imperfection size, have also been analysed and discussed in this article. The findings of this study show that the interactive buckling of steel column stiffened by the four-branch pin-connected crossarms must be taken into account for accurate analysis. It is also demonstrated that the cable-stiffened steel columns are imperfection sensitive, particularly when the critical buckling mode is located at the transition between symmetric and antisymmetric buckling, though the corresponding configuration is proved to be optimal with respect to the material utilisation rate.