I understand my questions is difficult - but perhaps I could start with my very limited knowledge to give an idea of what I'm talking about. From Wikipedia I found the following, but was unable to find articles for angle, channel, bar, plate. Perhaps someone else would know. Pictures of the various structural shapes can be found on page 58-2 of the CERM.
I Beam
Advantage:
The web resists shear forces while the flanges resist most of the bending moment experienced by the beam. Very efficient form for carrying both bending and shear loads in the plane of the web.
Disadvantage:
Cross-section has a reduced capacity in the transverse direction, and is also inefficient in carrying torsion, for which hollow structural sections are often preferred.
T-beam
Advantage:
Top of the t-shaped cross section serves as a flange or compression member in resisting compressive stresses.
Disadvantage:
Compared to an I-beam because it has no bottom flange with which to deal with tensile forces.
Tubing (Hollow Structural Section - HSS)
Advantage:
HSS, especially rectangular sections, are commonly used in welded steel frames where members experience loading in multiple directions. Square and circular HSS have very efficient shapes for this multiple-axis loading as they have uniform geometric and thus uniform strength characteristics along two or more cross-sectional axes; this makes them good choices for columns. They also have excellent resistance to torsion.
HSS can also be used as beams, although wide flange or I-beam shapes are in many cases a more efficient structural shape for this application. However, the HSS has superior resistance to lateral torsional buckling.
Angle (L-shaped cross-section)
Channel ( [-shaped cross-section)
Bar
Plate