COMPUTATION OF BUCKLING LOAD OF STEEL FRAMES WITH SEMI-RIGID CONNECTIONS

A computational model of buckling load of steel plane frames with sem-i rigid connections is put forward through establishing differential equations in buckling of the structures for each member of the structures and considering all the boundary conditions. The program is further developed and computaional results are presented. The results show that effect of joint flexibility and elastic bracing on buckling load of the structures is pronounced, which is valuable for considering the effect in design of steel frames against buckling of the whole structure. It should be especially noted that the buckling load or the equivalent buckling length factor of the plane steel structures are greatly influenced by the distribution of loads or ratio of loads, which was not considered well in present specification. The results show the other fact that effect of the sem-i rigid connections and the stiffness of bracing elements on the buckling load of the structures (or the factor of equivalent buckling length ) has a evident effect extent or limitation which show that variation of stiffness of sem-i rigid connections and the stiffness of bracing elements will have no effect on the buckling length when the stiffness of sem-i rigid connection or the bracing elements exceed a limited extent or value.