Practical application of Eurocode 3 to multi-storey buildings with steel 'sway frame' structures: Fid-Bau Portal

Practical application of Eurocode 3 to multi-storey buildings with steel 'sway frame' structures

Fattorini, F. / Bandini, M. / Cattaneo, F. / Pustorino, S.

The present work deals with the analysis and verification, according to the Eurocodes, of a particular class of steel structures known as 'sway frames' in which the nodal horizontal displacements produce non-negligible additional internal moments (P-delta effects) that have to be summed up to those deriving from a first-order analysis. The final result of this project is the draft of a practical design handbook for structural engineers dealing with the design of steel sway frame structures according to Eurocode 3 (EC3). The contents of this document are the design calculation rules for this category of structure. In addition, some indications are provided as to the use of popular general purpose computer codes available in the European market for a reliable and efficient design of sway frame systems. Finally, a number of calculation examples of 2D frames have been included. From a practical point of view, this research has shown that common types of steel structures such as industrial buildings, multi-storey car parks, warehouse buildings and small civil buildings subject to usual vertical loads may fail to fulfil the 'non-sway' criterion and thus have to be defined as sway frames. The results have shown that for asymmetrical plane frames the rules of EC3 for the simplified 'sway/non-sway' classification and for the indirect second-order elastic analysis methods have to be reconsidered in order to make them clearer and to improve their level of accuracy. Further studies are needed to develop the background to simple yet reliable design criteria.