Assign ready-made steel sections to beams and columns in StatiCAD; the program checks the members against the Load and Resistance Factor Design (LRFD) approach of ÇYTHYE and TBDY 2018, using forces from its own finite element solution, and reports the results with the governing limit state and load combination.
Steel beam and column design
In steel member design, buckling behavior is as decisive as the yield strength of the section: lateral–torsional buckling limits the capacity of long beams with little lateral support, and flexural or torsional buckling limits slender columns. The unbraced length, buckling length and cross-section class are therefore as important as strength.
In Turkey, steel structures are designed to the Turkish Design, Calculation and Construction Principles for Steel Structures (ÇYTHYE), and seismic actions are determined according to TBDY 2018. StatiCAD applies the Load and Resistance Factor Design (LRFD) approach of ÇYTHYE.
In StatiCAD, steel members can be part of the same model as reinforced concrete, masonry or timber elements. In mixed structures, steel roof beams, steel columns and additional steel members are designed without needing a separate program.
All steps of steel beam and column design, from section assignment to the calculation report.
The Steel Member Reports group contains two reports:
Steel beam and column calculations have been compared line by line with hand calculations: section properties, Lp and Lr limits, the Cb factor, lateral–torsional buckling moment, shear strength, deflection, buckling capacity and interaction values match the hand calculations exactly.
Printing the intermediate quantities next to the result in the report makes every result easy to check.
The strength calculation is performed for hot-rolled I/H sections such as IPE, IPN, HEA, HEB, HEM and HD, HL, HP. U, L, T, box and pipe sections can also be assigned and appear in the model and in the 3D view. Cold-formed sections are designed in the cold-formed steel module.
Yes. The design type of each member (reinforced concrete, masonry, timber, steel) is selected separately; in mixed structures, steel members are solved in the same analysis and checked to their own code.
The beam’s unbraced length is taken automatically from the beam length or entered manually. The program calculates the Lp and Lr limits, determines whether the yielding, inelastic or elastic lateral–torsional buckling region applies, and states the governing limit state in the report. The lateral–torsional buckling modification factor Cb is calculated from the moment diagram of each load combination; the governing combination is the one with the largest demand/capacity ratio.
If a wind load case is defined in the project, ÇYTHYE LRFD wind combinations are added to the design. The default TBDY combination list contains no wind; in that case, the analysis warnings state that no wind combination is present.
Steel structure calculations are available in StatiCAD Ultimate. You can try the workflow with the free demo version.
Download the demo version and try steel beam and column design on your own project for free.