Structural Steel Design: Learn the Principles of Design

Lecture two will focus on the advantages of steel, why and when to use steel.

We're now on the the disadvantages of structural steel, engineers are better equipped to use this material well when they effects of residual stresses and fire resistance are understood. 

Quick quiz on the advantages and disadvantages of using steel

Let's learn about how structural steel fails, we can't do much engineering without knowing what we're designing against.

Lateral torsional buckling, it can be tricky! First we'll investigate when this failure mechanism can occur. 

This lecture will take a look at tension failure, you'll be amazed at how strong structural steel really is! Yield strength and the grade of steel play a big part here. 

A quiz to test your knowledge of the failure modes, don't worry if you don't get things right first time, give the lectures another watch and then come back

Today's lecture is all about loading conditions, from the ACI to Eurocode, you will see all design codes tend to be more similar than not.

Quick quiz to test your understanding of the main safety factor design methods

Taking what we have learnt about the Eurocode loading conditions we will look at the permanent and imposed loads in a real life example.

Before we can design anything in structural steel, we need to know the moment, axial an shear forces. In this lecture we will take a look at the analysis shortcuts that will have you designing in no time.

Taking what we have learnt we will run through an analysis shortcut to show you the quickest way to analyse simple frames. You'll be designing structural steel in no time!

Understanding lateral restraint and effective lengths is vital in structural engineering. We'll take a quick run through the theory behind lateral restraint and then play a game of 'spot the restraint' to get you thinking.

The first step in structural design is to work out a sections classification. In this lecture we'll look at how the different sections react to load as well as a shortcut to confirming the class. 

Now that we have an idea of how steel sections react to load, let's look at how steel in general acts under load. We'll look at the properties of steel, yield strength, ultimate strengths, elastic and plastic failures. 

The first step in steel design is to ensure the member is able to resist the applied bending forces, ie moment. The effective length and fixity conditions are ignored for this initial design check. 

We will now take the forces we previously calculated and design a suitable beam section to resist the moment. This is where the structural steel design theory starts coming into practice. 

Following on from bending resistance, we will now take a look at the axial condition. This lecture covers the compressive resistance of a structural steel member. 

The opposing axial force is that of tension. You will generally encounter this when designing bracing elements as well as in connection design. The grade and yield strength of these steel chosen is a major influencing factor. 

Shear resistance is easy to overlook and in most cases will not be there critical case unless high point loads are present, however this vital step must always be taken. Shear failure is a brittle failure,  meaning it gives no warning before collapse, and must be considered carefully. 

This shear resistance will show how easily, and quickly, the shear resistance of structural steel can be calculated. 

Now that we understand how to calculate these bending and axial resistance of a member, what happens when we encounter the combined condition?

In this lecture we will look at the reduced moment method of calculating the structural section's resistance. 

This example will go through the combined axial and bending checks, including a bi-axial moment resistance check.