Development of a consistent design procedure for lateral–torsional buckling of tapered beams

Design of web-tapered steel beams against lateral-torsional buckling through a stiffness reduction method

“…To address this shortcoming in the LTB assessment of tapered steel beams, alternative design methods have been put forward in the literature [3][4][5][6]. These methods are generally based on the reduction of the ultimate bending moment resistances of the cross-sections of the web-tapered beams along their lengths by means of buckling reduction factors determined using buckling curves proposed for tapered members.…”

“…These methods are generally based on the reduction of the ultimate bending moment resistances of the cross-sections of the web-tapered beams along their lengths by means of buckling reduction factors determined using buckling curves proposed for tapered members. The influence of bending moment gradient on the development of plasticity, tapering geometry, load height, restraint type and position and the interactions between the laterally unrestrained segments during buckling on the ultimate resistances of tapered beams are typically taken into consideration through approximate and lengthy calculations within these methods [3][4][5][6], underlining the need for the development of both a practical and accurate design method for tapered steel beams.…”

“…Owing to the ability of the stiffness reduction function to fully consider the detrimental effects of plasticity and imperfections, the presented approach does not require any further global instability assessment through semi-empirical member design equations, which can be particularly complicated for tapered steel beams, thus leading to a very practical design approach. Moreover, unlike alternative methods presented in the literature [3][4][5][6], the influence of bending moment gradient on the development of plasticity, tapering geometry, load height, restraint type and position and the interactions of laterally unrestrained segments during buckling can be directly and readily considered through the Linear Buckling Analysis with stiffness reduction (LBA-SR). In the application of the proposed method, the elastic beam finite element of Trahair [16], recently put forward to represent the elastic instability response of tapered steel members, is utilised.…”

Safety Assessment of Eurocode 3 Stability Design Rules for the Lateral-Torsional Buckling of Prismatic Beams

“…It is considered that advanced finite element simulations can reproduce with sufficient accuracy the real behaviour and therefore those were carried out to obtain "experimental" results. The simulations were performed using finite element software product Abaqus 6.12 [19], using the guidelines established by Marques et al [20] for the modelling of tapered beams subject to LTB with shell elements.…”

05.10: Numerical model for the buckling behaviour of tapered steel members based on experimental tests

“…However, EN1993-1-1[1] does not provide a clear guidance for the stability design of such members. Recently, the authors have provided simplified stability verification methodologies for tapered columns and beams [2,3]. The developed methodologies are based on analytical derivations which were validated with advanced numerical simulations.…”