Direct Design of Stainless Steel Frames: Recommendations and Case Studies

Abstract

This paper summarizes the key aspects to consider when building advanced finite element models to determine the strength of systems (initial geometric imperfections, nonlinear stress-strain responses, residual stresses, etc.) in Section 2, illustrates the DDM design process through two worked examples in Section 3 considering strength and serviceability limit states, and highlights the main differences between the Direct Design Method and the traditional member-based design procedure in Section 4, comparing the final cold-formed stainless steel frames optimized for the two design approaches under the same design loads.