Regarding the upper limit of the shear stiffness in battened members in Eurocode 3

Abstract

Part 1-1 of Eurocode 3 provisions are applicable to built-up members of buildings formed by identical chords with lacings in two planes. This paper proposes a correction on the formulation provided by Eurocode 3 in regard to the upper limit of the shear stiffness in battened members. This upper limit is commonly used as a first input in the pre-design procedure of built-up members. The upper limit proposed by Eurocode 3 corresponds to an approximation included in the German regulation DIN 4114-1 in which the design of battened members was done using a fictitious slenderness, a concept that is not used in the current Part 1-1 of Eurocode 3. As a consequence of this, Eurocode 3 decreases the theoretical upper limit of the shear stiffness of these members leading to an artificial increment of the design moment. Furthermore, for educational reasons a correction is proposed in order to use a coherent theoretical support for the design of steel structures. A detailed justification is presented.