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INTRODUCTION TO STEEL DESIGN

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At the end of this topic, students should:

- understand what is meant by structural steel (CO1-PO1)

- know the function of structural steel (CO1-PO1)

- know different type of structural steel element (CO1-PO1)

- realize the advantages & disadvantages of using steel as a structural material (CO1-PO1)

- know different type of steel section (CO1-PO1)

- understand the theory used in structural steel design (CO1-PO1)

- know about the load & material strength applied in design (CO1-PO1)

- aware of different design methods for building using structural steelwork (CO1-PO1)

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Definition

What is iron?

- Iron is a strong hard magnetic metal that occurs naturally in iron ore which is processed &
then further refined to produce steel

What is steel?

-Steel is an alloy of iron & carbon usually less than 1.5% by weight of carbon, together with
various other elements such as manganese, chromium etc.

What is structural steel?

- Structural steel refers to the steel elements of a structural frame supporting the design
loads

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Function of structural steelwork

1.Building frames

- loads must be supported safely & without undue movement

- weather proof envelope must be attached

- steel frame building consists of a skeletal framework which carries all

loads which the building is subjected

- common type of steel frame building:

i) Single-storey lattice girder construction

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Function of structural steelwork

ii) Single-storey rigid portal frame construction

iii) Multi-storey building

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2. Containers

- retain liquids, granular material or gases

3. Masts

- safely support mechanical or electrical

equipment at specified heights

Different between tower & masts:

stays or guys
Tower: self-supporting or
cantilevered structure

Masts: held up by stays or guys

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4. Chimneys

- support flues carrying waste gases to safe heights

5. Bridges

- support traffic & other loads

Suspension bridge Cable-stayed bridge

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6. Temporary supports

- used during construction of some part of a structure

Scaffolding Shoring

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Steel structural element

1. Beams & girders

- members carrying vertical loads in bending & shear

2. Ties

- members carrying axial loads in tension

3. Struts, columns & stanchions

- members carrying axial loads in compression (often subjected to bending &

compression)

4. Trusses & lattice girders

- framed members carrying axial loads (composed of struts & ties)

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Steel structural element

5. Purlins

- beam members carrying roof sheeting

6. Sheeting rails

- beam members supporting wall cladding

7. Bracing

- diagonal struts & ties, together with column & roof trusses, form vertical &
horizontal trusses to resist wind loads & stabilize the building

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Factory building

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Multi-storey office building

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- these structural elements must be joined together & the building attached to the
foundations

- joint connect members together such as joints in trusses, joints between floor beams
& columns or other floor beams. Bases transmit the loads from the columns to the
foundation

- building are 3D-sectional frame. It must be propped & braced laterally to remain in
position & carry the load without buckling out of plane of the section

Structural design process

- building design nowadays usually carried out by a multi-discipline design team. An

architect draws up plans for a building to meet the client’s requirements.

- the structural engineer examines various alternative framing arrangements & may
carry out preliminary designs to determine which is the most economical. This is
termed as ‘conceptual design stage’

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- For a given framing arrangement, the problem in structural design consists of:

i) estimation of loading

ii) analysis of main frames, trusses or lattice girders, floor systems, bracing &
connections to determine axial loads, shears & moments at critical points in
all members

iii) design of the elements & connections using design data from step ii

iv) production of arrangements & detail drawings from the designer’s

sketches

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Advantages of steel as a structural material

1. High Strength

Steel members have high strength per unit weight. Therefore, a steel member of a
small section which has little self weight is able to resist heavy loads. This fact is of
great importance for long-span bridges, tall buildings & structures situated on poor
foundations

2. Pre-fabricated

Being light, steel members can be conveniently handled & transported. For this
reason, prefabricated members can be frequently provided. In many projects the steel
frame can be fabricated while the site construction of foundations is being carried out.
They can be erected at a faster rate & this will often lead to a shorter construction
period & earlier completion date

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Advantages of steel as a structural material

3. Ductility

Steel, being a ductile material, does not fail suddenly, but gives visible evidence of
impending failure by large deflections. The property of a material that can withstand
extensive deformation without failure under high tensile stress is known as ductility

When a mild or low carbon structural steel member is being tested in tension, a
considerable reduction in cross section & a large amount of elongation will occur at
the point of failure before actual fracture occurs. A material that does not have this
property (brittle) might break if subjected to a sudden shock

In structural members under normal loads, high stress concentrations develop at

various points. The ductile nature of the usual structural steels enables them to yield
locally at those points, thus preventing premature failures

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Advantages of steel as a structural material

4. Elasticity

Steel behaves closer to design assumptions than most materials because it follows
Hooke’s law up to fairly high stresses. The moments of inertia of a steel structure can
be accurately calculated, while the values obtained for a reinforced concrete structure
are rather indefinite

5. Toughness

Structural steels are tough, i.e. they have both strength & ductility. A steel member
loaded until it has large deformations will still be able to withstand large forces. This is
a very important characteristics, because it means that steel members can be
subjected to large deformations during fabrication & erection without fracture, thus
allowing them to be bent, hammered, sheared & to have holes punched in them
without visible damage. The ability of material to absorb energy in large amounts is
called toughness

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Advantages of steel as a structural material

6. Permanence

Properly maintained steel structures have a long life. Research on some of the newer
steels indicates that under certain conditions no painting maintenance will be
required

7. Additions to Existing Structures

Additions & alterations can be made easily to steel structures. New bays or even
entire new wings can be added to existing steel frame buildings & steel bridges may
often be widened

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Steel solutions for sustainable development requirements in the construction sector

Source: www.otua.org
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Disadvantages of steel as a structural material

1. Corrosion

Most steels are susceptible to corrosion when freely exposed to air & water, therefore
it must be painted periodically. Corrosion-fatigue failures can occur where steel
members are subject to cyclic stresses & corrosive environments. The fatigue strength
of steel members can be appreciably reduced when the members are used in
aggressive chemical environments & subject to cyclic loads

2. Fireproofing Costs

Although structural members are incombustible, their strength is tremendously

reduced at temperatures commonly reached in fires when other material in building
burn. Steel is also an excellent heat conductor – nonfireproofed steel members may
transmit enough heat from burning section to ignite materials which are in contact
with adjoining section. As a result, steel frame of a building may have to be protected
by materials with certain insulating characteristics

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Fire protections for steel columns & beams:

solid casing hollow casing profile casing

Corrosion protections:

- metallic coatings

- painting

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Disadvantages of steel as a structural material

3. Susceptibility to buckling

As the length & slenderness of a compression member is increased, its danger of

buckling increases. For most structures, the use of steel columns is very economical
because of their high strength to weight ratios. However, some additional steel is
needed to stiffen them so they will not buckle. This tends to increase the cost.

4. Fatigue

Strength of steel may reduced if it is subjected to a large number of stress reversals or

large number of variations of tensile stress (Fatigue problems occur only when tension
is involved).

5. Brittle Fracture

Under certain conditions steel may lose its ductility, & brittle fracture may occur at
places of stress concentration. Fatigue-type loadings & very low temperatures
aggravate the situation.

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Steel sections

1. Hot rolled section

- produced by hot rolling of steel billets (block of steel) in a rolling mill

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Steel sections

2. Cold formed section

- produced by shaping of unheated steel sheet by cold bending, cold

drawing, cold rolling & cold pressing at room temperature

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Steel sections

3. Built-up section

- welding plates together to form I, H or box members

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Steel sections

4. Metal sheet/section

- for composite construction, act as permanent formwork for slab

- also known as steel decking

concrete poured onto permanent formwork

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Types of metal sheet/section:

re-entrant

trapezoidal

deep deck

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Limit State Design

Steel design may be based on three design theories:

1) Elastic design
2) Plastic design
3) Limit state design

1) Elastic design

- until recent years, almost all steel beams were designed using elastic theory

- in elastic design, the maximum load that a structure could support was assumed
to equal the load that first caused a stress somewhere in the structure to equal
the yield stress of the material

- steel is almost perfectly elastic up to the yield point & structures are analyzed by
elastic theory. Sections are sized with yield stress not exceeded

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- problem with elastic design: ductile members do not fail until a great yielding
occurs after the yield stress is reached. This means that, such members have
greater margin of safety against collapse, which is uneconomical, as full potential
of steel is not been utilized

2) Plastic design

- plastic design takes advantage of an important & unique property of mild steel,
namely its ductility. Plastic design take into account behavior past the yield point &
it is based on finding the load that causes the structure to collapse

- plastic design take into consideration long yield plateau which allows the
possibility of considerable plastic strain at constant stress

- working load = collapse load

load factor

- limitation of plastic design: all cross sections must be able to sustain the plastic
moment without showing any sign of local buckling

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Stress-strain diagrams for structural
steels

Stress-strain diagrams for plastic

design

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- basic principles may be illustrated by considering the behaviour of simply supported
beam as the load is increased up to the level where the beam fails

- if w represents the unfactored load per unit length & λ is the load factor, the
relationship between λ & the deflection under the load are as follows:

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- at load levels below the yield factor λy
the stress distribution (at the center of the
beam) is linear with a maximum value f in
the outermost fibres

- as the load level is increased above λy ,

the outer fibres yield & yield zones start to
spread inwards towards Neutral Axis

- the inward spread of plasticity continues

until the whole cross-section at mid span
has become plastic. At this stage, the
beam cannot accept no more load, i.e. it
has reach collapse value with the load
factor λc

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- at collapse the centre of the beam behaves like a hinge with the result that the
beam has effectively become a mechanism

- two basic principles of plastic theory:

i) in plastic design, structures are assumed to collapse by the formation

of a collapse mechanism

ii) collapse mechanisms occur by the formation of one or more plastic hinges.
At plastic hinge, the cross-section has become fully plastic which result that it
can rotate at constant bending moment. The bending moment at plastic hinge
is termed as fully plastic moment of resistance or simply full plastic moment

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- most codes adopt plastic design. However, plastic design (and also elastic design)
only emphasis on material behaviour. In reality, structure can fail not only due to
failure of material, but also due to excessive deformation. Therefore, Limit State
Design concept was introduced

Limit State Design

- the central concepts of limit state design are as follows:

1) All separate conditions that make the structure unfit for use are taken into account

- the structure should not overturn under applied loads & its members & joints
should be strong enough to carry the forces which they are subjected. In addition,
other conditions such as excessive deflection of beams or unacceptable vibration,
though in fact not causing collapse, should not make the structure unfit for use

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2) The design is based on the actual behaviour of materials & performance of

structures & members in service

- the strengths are calculated using plastic theory & post buckling behaviour is taken
into account. The effect of imperfections on design strength is also included. It is
recognized that calculations cannot be made in all cases to ensure that limit states are
not reached. In cases such as brittle fracture, good practice must be followed to
ensure that damage of failure does not occur

3) Ideally, design should be based on statistical methods with a small probability of

the structure reaching a limit state

- in fact, loads & material strengths vary. Approximations are used in design &
imperfections in fabrication & erection affect the strength in service. All these factors
can only be assessed in statistical terms. Therefore, partial factors of safety are
introduced to take account of all uncertainties in loads, material strength, etc.

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- limit states design consists of Ultimate Limit State (ULS) & Serviceability Limit State
(SLS)

Ultimate Limit State : 1) Strength ((including general yielding,

rupture, buckling & transformation into
mechanism)

2) Stability against overturning & sway

3) Fracture due to fatigue

4) Brittle fracture

- when ULS are reached, whole structure or part of it collapses

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Serviceability Limit State: 5) Deflection

6) Vibration (eg. wind-induced oscillation)

7) Repairable damage due to fatigue

8) Corrosion & durability

- when reached the limit, structure or part of it unfit for normal use but do not
indicate collapse has occurred

- all relevant limit states should be considered, but usually it will be appropriate to
design on the basis of strength & stability at ultimate loading & then check that
deflection is not excessive under serviceability loading

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Loads

1) Dead loads (Gk, gk)

- permanent & constant during structure’s life

- self-weight of the structure, architectural component such as cladding,

partition & ceilings

- permanent equipment & static machinery

2) Live (imposed) loads (Qk, qk)

- load that vary with time

- occupants, furniture, snow, retained water, thermal

expansion/shrinkage, etc.

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3) Wind loads (Wk, wk)

- depend on the location & building size

4) Dynamic loads

- caused mainly by cranes

Characteristic value

1) Characteristic value for material strength

- based on value given by the material supplier

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2) Characteristic value for loads

- based on statistical data

- for insufficient data, take directly from BS 6399 Design Loads for Buildings,
Part 1: Code of Practice for dead & imposed loads

Partial Factor of Safety (F.O.S)

1) Partial F.O.S for materials

- desired strength will differ from actual strength in material fabrication

process
characteristic strength (f )
- design strength = k

partial F.O.S (γ )
m

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2) Partial F.O.S for loads

- inaccuracies in assumptions, calculation, construction

- design load = characteristic loads x partial F.O.S (γ ) f

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Design methods for buildings

- Design of buildings must be carried out in accordance with one of these methods:

1) Simple design

- connections between members are assumed not to develop moments. The

structure is assumed to be pin jointed for analysis. Bracing or shear walls are
necessary to provide resistance to horizontal loading

2) Continuous design

- connections between members are assumed to be capable of developing the

strength and/or stiffness required by an analysis assuming full continuity. The analysis
may be made using either elastic or plastic methods

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3) Semi-continuous design

- the joints have some degree of strength & stiffness, but insufficient to develop full
continuity

4) Experimental verification

- where the design of a structure or element by calculation in accordance with any of

the above methods is not practicable, strength & stiffness may be confirmed by
loading tests

In practice, normally structures are designed using either simple or continuous

methods of design

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Simple design Continuous design

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