Cold-formed steel flexural member distortional buckling question

[cliff234]

I have been designing cold-formed steel framing using the tables provided in the AISI Cold-Formed Steel Design Manual. Most of the flexural tables are based on flexural buckling. I "discovered" tables in that manual that have distortional flexural buckling strengths. Could someone please explain when distortional buckling might control when checking flexural strength? From what I understand distortional buckling strength is affected by the stiffness of sheathing and the type and spacing of fasteners between the sheathing and the studs. If I have sheathing on both sides of a wall stud and that stud is exposed to bending due to wind loads, can I ignore distortional buckling as long as the sheathing is fastened at a certain spacing?

 

[Guastavino]

I think that you are correct. The below link tells you everything you want (and more).

http://www.ce.jhu.edu/bschafer/dist_beams/AISI DB Report.pdf

 

[cliff234]

Thank you! But 404 pages? I think I'm getting lazy (or stupid) in my old age. Can someone perhaps give me a short summary about distortional buckling? What do I have to do to insure that it does not control design when designing wall studs or floor/roof joists?