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Cubic Beam Elements In Practical Analysis And Design Of Steel Frames, Lip H. Teh

Faculty of Engineering - Papers (Archive)

This paper discusses various issues in the use of cubic beam elements for computer structural analysis/design of steel frames. It is pointed out that the concern expressed in recent literature regarding the number of cubic elements required to model a steel member is not justified, and that the inaccuracy of one cubic element in Euler buckling analysis of a simply supported column is largely irrelevant to the second-order elastic analysis/design or advanced analysis of steel frames. The sources of inaccuracy of the cubic element are elucidated. It is also explained that the plastic-zone analysis method is not so inefficient as …