Steel Design

(Steel member capacity check)

GSA Steel Member Design

Steel Design
1. Design codes covered 2. Analysis layer & design layer 3. Member-element relationship 4. Creation of members 5. Member properties 6. Member & element local axis 7. Member forces & moments 8. Design checks carried out 9. Results 10. Limitations
GSA Steel Member Design

1. Design codes covered

BS5950 2000 AISC - LRFD3 Eurocode 3 IS8000:1984 & IS800:2007

AISC 2005 (under development)

GSA Steel Member Design

2. Analysis layer & design layer

1. Analysis layer
1. Elements 2.

2. Design layer
1. Members 2. Geometric entities - line, area and region etc 3.

GSA Steel Member Design

3. Memberelement relationship
One member can contain one or more elements which are in a straight line and coincide with the member Example of a member and the associated elements
Element (8,1) Element (1,5) Element (5,7)

Node 8

Node 1 Span 2

Node 5 Span 3 Member Node 3

Node 7

Span 1 Member Node 1 Member Node 2

Member Node 4

Member (8, 7)

GSA Steel Member Design

4. Creation of members
Generate from existing elements (from tool menu) Type in on member table in the same way typing elements in element table Use Sculpt tools, e.g. copy & paste etc, the same as working on elements

GSA Steel Member Design

5. Member properties
Section property define the section geometry.
Normally, it should be the same as the property of the associated elements.

Design property define material grade, effective

area & effective length etc.

Restraint property define point and/or

continuous restraints along the member that will be used to generate the effective length of the member by GSA. If effective length is defined explicitly in Design property table, the restraint property is not required.

GSA Steel Member Design

6. Member local axis used in design

Z X (node 1 to node 2) Y

X (strong bending axis)

Member

Element

GSA Steel Member Design

7. Member forces and moments

Forces and moments in the member
They are taken from the corresponding elements for the chosen analysis or combination case The forces and moments from elements are considered as factorised forces and moments and no load factors will be applied in the design stage

The sub-spans of a member

As an user an element in a member is considered as a subspan, e.g. if there are three elements in a member, there are three sub-span Within the program a sub-span has linear moment distribution and the maximum difference of the linear moment diagram and the true moment diagram is smaller than a small tolerance, so there will be many sub-spans if the moment diagram of the member is not linear

GSA Steel Member Design

8. Design checks being carried out

Local axial Local moment (major axis) Local moment (minor axis) Local shear (major axis) Local shear (minor axis) Local torsional (Not so accurate) Buckling (about major axis) Buckling (about minor axis) Lateral torsional buckling

GSA Steel Member Design

10

9. Results
Types of the result output
Utilisation factor Summary Brief Verbose Effective length Synopsis

Viewing the results

Contour on graphic view - utilisation factors Output table view selected members & cases From object viewer (individual member)

GSA Steel Member Design

11

10. Limitations
Torsion not fully considered. Unsymmetrical sections not yet supported. Mixed steel grades in single section not yet supported. Welding material disregarded in assessment of section properties. Web high-shear buckling treated conservatively in respect of web capacity. Whole structure stability issues are not considered since the steel checker only knows one member at a time.
GSA Steel Member Design

12