Steel Column Design

Columns are structural members that mostly work in compression and bending, and only very short columns can be axially loaded to their yield stress. Often buckling, or sudden bending as a result of instability, occurs prior to developing the full material strength.

The program performs the design of a steel member subjected to axial load and bending moments about its two principal axes. The program is based on the AISC ASD/LRFD methodology and checks the axial, bending, and combined stresses according to the AISC 360-05 Specifications (13th Ed. Manual). Either service or factored loads may be specified.

Two types of procedures may be followed in order to calculate the required strength and the design requirements, depending on the source of the loads entered as data:
a) Second-Order Analysis, which considers the P-Delta and P-delta effects.
b) Amplified First-Order Analysis. In this case the program will calculate the amplified moments based on the information provided.

Input Data

The input data required by the program includes the material properties and member geometry, as well as applied loads. In addition, the effective length K-factors in both X and Y directions are required.

Example

As an example, consider a 30'-0" W10x54 steel column subjected to a factored axial compression of 100 k and bending moments of 60 and 20 k-ft around the strong and weak axis respectively. Effective length factors are Kx = 1.0 and Ky = 0.7. Loads are the result of a second-order analysis.

Output

The column size is adequate since the design ratios for compression, flexure and combined forces are 0.29, 0.29 and 0.69 respectively. The program has a design option, which finds all the sections that pass the specified criteria in a sortable table, as shown below.

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"This software has been an excellent tool for me, with very good technical support when I needed it. Overall, it looks like this is going to be an extremely handy piece of software for me."

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