1. WHY USE STEEL?

ADVANTAGES

 Fast to erect
 No need for formwork
 No need for temporary supports (reinforced concrete structures need props as part of formwork
structure until it gains strength. Makes finishing operations harder) Steel is completely free of
obstacles as soon as it is erected.
 Light weight (steel framed structures are very light when compared to reinforced concrete or
masonry structures) this results in smaller and cheaper foundations. This is especially important
when the founding conditions are physically unable to support a heavier structure. Another time
when this is an advantage is when adding an additional floor to an existing structure. Generally any
steel or timber will be light enough to be placed on an existing foundation.
 More floor space (a typical steel column is also smaller than its concrete counterpart)
 Higher ductility (Earthquake) higher ductility allows steel a degree of deformation before failure.
 Aesthetics (Steel can be used to create very slender attractive structures and that’s why many
architects are very quick to go to steel when any of the support structure needs to be visible)

DISADVANTAGES

 Fire resistance. There are 3 ways of protecting steel:

o Old solution where gypsum and polystyrene-based fireproofing plaster is sprayed on to
the steel truss and metal deck.
o Intumescent paint.
o SFRM cementitious material
 Corrosion (steel beams are generally much thinner and therefore smaller changes in section size has
a bigger effect on the carrying capacity. To get around this there are special paints that can be
applied or the elements can be galvanized)
 Thermal insulation (steel is also unable to resist thermal movement as well as concrete, masonry or
timber. In cold countries extra steps are taken like installing thermal breaks or placing insulation into
stud walls inside rooms) the same applies for sound insulation.
 Residual stresses (during fabrication there is an uneven cooling from the core to the outside face of
the steel section. That creates internal stresses in the section.
2. HOW STEEL FAILS

ELEMENT FAILURE

It could be due to Overloading or Under designing structure.

OVERLOADING:

A) LOCAL BUCKLING: this is independent of the length of the element.

B) FLEXURAL BUCKLING: The capacity of the beam is

very much influenced by the Length of the
element and the Fixity Conditions.
C) BENDING: It is caused by a force acting over the length of the beam or within the beam. It is
NOT influenced by the Length of the element OR the Fixity Conditions.
Example: Now we’ll have a look at how a hollow section reacts to an axial load. Which one of these 3
failure modes is the reason for this failure?

The element was not subject to any load within the length of the member, so it is not bending; neither
that the member buckled. This is an example of local buckling because the stresses in isolated areas
were too high to handle and it crushed locally.

D) LATERAL TORSIONAL BUCKLING This is the 4th failure mechanism

E) SHEAR FAILURE: This failure is an instantaneous failure unlike the lateral torsional buckling
failure which is quite a slow process. So ALWAYS BE CAREFUL TO CHECK YOUR SHEAR!!!! This is
a failure mechanism that does not give people the time to get out of the collapsing building.
 A little background to the shear and moment diagrams is now up:

Here we understand the beam supported at points A and D with a point load acting at B and a rotation
acting at C. In the support at A we can see the shear force moving up. It remains constant until it gets to
point B, at which it moves down the value of the force at point B and keep consistent until point D.

The rotation does not influence the shear force diagram.

The shear force will always return to zero (0) at the supports.

In the moment diagram we can see that:

- At the supports the moment is zero, because this is a simply supported beam.
- You can also see the influence of the point load at B and the rotation at C.

A good way to tell you are on the right track with your shear force and moment diagrams is to know that
the point where the shear force diagram goes over the zero line is where the maximum moment will be.
In this case it will be at point B.

The times when we really have to pay attention to the shear force is when we have a high point load.
Although you should always check your shear, it is unlikely to be critical when you have uniformly
distributed loads. It is influenced mainly by the area of the section, and interestingly we need the area of
the web.

TENSION FAILURE

The last of the element failures we’ll consider is Tensile Failure.

We can see a standard rod pulled upon from each side. It will be 3 main ways in which this will fail.

(a) Brittle failure or ‘snap’ failure. This is based on the ultimate stress and can be denoted by the
letters “fu”, ultimate yield.
(b) It is the case where it has started to yield but then it has snapped.
(c) This is a pure yield failure where the element has stretched out or necked until failure.

So we have:

When we are designing always remember:

It is much safer that way!!!!!!

3. LOADING CONDITIONS

LOAD TYPES AND TERMINOLOGY

LIMIT STATE DESIGN – ULTIMATE

Moving to the Limit State Theory which is based on a set of safety factors that are applied to the loads
that we have just discussed as well as material safety factors applied to the material itself.

When you are doing design it is very important to make sure that your Design Code and your Loading
Code are the same.

Let’s see how the different country codes compare:

Example:

We can see the different units for each component. This will become very important when we start
looking at when to apply the loads.

Note: Always write down the units!!!!

But we have not included the weight of the beam itself. So this will be added later.

Heading to the Live Load. We assume this is an office space. And the code says to consider 2.5KN/m2 for
office space.

So now the Load Combinations:

How do we really apply this to the beam?

These beams are spaced 5m, so our effective width (tributary) acting over a single beam is then 5 meters

We look at this in plan view:

One thing to note is to look at the load of the beam compared to the load of the rest of the structure.
The skeleton of the structure is so lightweight when compared to concrete beams and columns.

4. ANALYSIS SHORTCUTS

We’ll cover shortcuts that will help before getting into the design stage.

CONCEPT DESIGN AND PRELIMINARY SIZING

The last thing you want to do is to start the design with an element that is too many sizes away from the
ideal and then need to do lots of unnecessary calculations.

The 1st thing we need to look at is what the beam is and what the load is carrying.

The Primary beams will generally span from support to support picking up the adjacent beams and floor
or roof structure. The adjacent beams are called the Secondary beams and in the case below will be the
beams from which the floor deck spans between. We also have Parallel chord trusses. The most
important thing to know about this element is that it is parallel. You will generally find these more in
warehouse buildings.

Parallel Chord Truss: it is parallel and completely flat

Truss:

where: L= length

These are good starting point when looking to get a feel for what type of depth you will be dealing with.

For example for a primary beam it will generally be its length divided by 10 to 15. An easy way to think
of where in between these numbers it will lie is to