This book presents a simple, concise, and direct method of designing steel frames, using a practical, advanced technique that produces member sizes very close to those given by the LRFD method. The main advantage of Advanced Analysis is that the laborious and sometimes confused member capacity checks needed to satisfy the AISC-LRFD specifications are avoided. Advanced Analysis captures the limit state strength and stability of a structural system and its component members directly. While elastic analysis is still the standard in engineering practice, a new generation of Codes is expected to adopt Advanced techniques and thus significantly reduce cost and time. In recent years, the rapid development of computer hardware and software, coupled with growing knowledge of structural behavior has made it possible to introduce Advanced Analysis to the design office.
This book is written for both academics in Universities and engineers in the industry. The reader need have no specific knowledge of this subject, but should be familiar with methods of elastic analysis and conventional LRFD design. Advanced Analysis has been presented here in a practical and simple manner for both analysis and design with emphasis placed upon implementing advanced analysis in engineering practice. This book describes not only this general method in as a simple manner as possible, but also provides introduction on how this new method can be used in frame design.
The scope of the book is indicated by its contents.
Chapter 1 presents the development of various methods of advanced analysis and a review of the AISC-LRFD method. The concept and formulation of Advanced Analysis are discussed in Chapter 2. Chapter 3 addresses verification studies for a wide range of frames. The step-by-step procedure required to perform this analysis is described in Chapter 4. Chapter 5 introduces an ucational version of this advanced technique coded in FORTRAN. A floppy disk is included on the back cover to exercise this new tool. In Chapter 6, design examples using advanced analysis are presented in detail, and also compared to the LRFD method. The design examples cover frames including braced, unbraced, and semi-rigid frames. The input data for each design example are provided so engineers can easily reproduce their own input.
The authors thank Purdue University Teaching Assistant Elizabeth M. Webster and Graduate Student I-hong Chen for their help in proofreading this manuscript and their valuable comments. The authors also extend special thanks to Mrs. Molly Stetler for her outstanding job in typing the manuscript.