The purpose of this paper is to determine what is the actual buckling (flexural and/or flexuraltorsional) behavior of stainless steel unequal-leg single angles under axial compression considering the principal orientation of the angle. This was achieved through performing a critical literature review on the topic as well as updating the code used in analyzing results from earlier research performed at UW-Madison. Various papers were used to understand the mechanics behind the complexity of axial compression of unequal-leg single angle columns and the differences between carbon and stainless steel. Due to the minimal literature available, a knowledge gap was concluded to exist. The only applicable results found were from the on-going testing that this paper is a part of which discussed the buckling behavior through the testing of a 3 in. x 2 in. x ¼ in. stainless steel angle at 10 in., 20 in., 36 in., 72 in., 100 in., and 148 in. lengths. The code from UW Madison was updated to output the results in the principal orientation as the original output results were in the geometric orientation. Updating and analyzing the code concluded that the stainless steel angles failed from flexural buckling at longer lengths and flexural-torsional buckling shorter lengths, both about the angle’s minor axis. Going forward, it is recommended that more testing be done on different sized sections as the results were applicable only to the tested section. Testing more sections would verify that the trends present in the tested section are standard for unequal-leg angles.
