Highlights
The Steel Design module offers an interactive tool for section and stability design of steel members. From section classification to interaction checks for the various load effects on a member, SCIA Engineer guides you in achieving the optimal design with minimum of manual input.
The design follows the FEM analysis; you may choose whether to take into account 2nd order deformation and imperfections on the level of analysis, or on the level of the checks. The interaction of load effects and various types of buckling are correctly handled in both cases.
ULS checks are executed according to EC3, AISC 360, SIA 263, and NBR 8800 codes. The built-in intelligence determines which articles of the code are to be applied and appropriate design equations are selected for section and stability checks based on section class, overall slenderness, etc.
Serviceability limit state checks are available for EC3 and SIA 263 codes. SLS checks on deflections ensure the integrity of separation walls, façades and other non-load-bearing elements and finishes, as well as people's comfort.
SCIA Engineer supports the therein included methods, safety factors and coefficients that are of significance to structural analysis and design.
National Annex support is available for a number of countries: Austria, Belgium, Czechia, Cypress, Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malaysia, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom. The choice of methods and coefficients specific per National Annex can be reviewed or adapted.
Section classification is the necessary step before applying the checking rules of most steel design codes. The Steel design module performs a robust classification of a great variety of cross-section shapes.
Calculating a different section class per combination is a lot of work... if you are calculating by hand. But in an automated computation, such attention to detail can deliver a notably more cost-efficient result.
SCIA Engineer's intelligent tool for section classification analyses any section that can be approximated by centrelines and thickness and determines among the 4 categories described in EN 1993-1-1 (and EN 1993-1-2 in the case of fire design). Classification is performed inside the Steel design module and is executed at multiple locations along the beam/column/purlin per load combination.
For Eurocode 3 and SIA 263 codes, the tool can also be used in a standalone mode (called from the cross-section editing dialogue). The standalone mode is intended for testing, comparison to hand calculations, or to support students learning engineering design. But the real value of the tool is in its integration in the Steel Code Check.
For haunched and arbitrary members, the variation of section geometry along the member length is also taken into account during the classification.
In order to apply the section classification formulas of the code, the neutral line location needs to be determined. In the case of N + My + Mz plastic interaction, this is not a straightforward task.
The Classification Tool offers the user three numerical methods for finding the neutral line. Each method offers different level of accuracy. You can tweak the balance between accuracy and speed depending on the nature of the task at hand.
The three methods explained:
The Yield Surface Intersection method offers a very good balance between high accuracy and speed.
Not only thin-walled cold-formed steel members require the use of effective section properties. Other slender beams, especially the sheet-welded ones, often fall inside the Class 4 category. Such beams offer elegant engineering solutions and efficient material use, if designed smartly.
In the Eurocode 3, SIA 263, AISC 360 codes, an effective section is derived for any class 4 steel shape - hot-rolled or welded, closed or open, library-defined or general thin-walled. You benefits from SCIA Engineer's flexibility in the design of slender steel members: these are split into flat walls and stiffeners, whose geometry is then reduced based on their slenderness and the stresses found in them.
The obtained effective sections can he displayed graphically, and all iterations of the calculation are reported in tables.
The valorisation project SEMI-COMP+ n° RFS2-CT-2010-00023 provided a few publications on how to achieve a more economical design for cross-sections that fall under the class 3. The Eurocode 3 specifies that these 'semi-plastic' sections should be assumed to fail in purely elastic failure. This is rather conservative, and instead, some of the plastic reserve can be utilised depending on how slender the section actually is.
Plastic reserve based on the actual section slenderness is now implemented in SCIA Engineer for double-symmetrical I-sections and RHS. Instead of a discontinuity at the transition between classes 2 and 3 (a jump from the plastic section resistance to the elastic section resistance), a gradual reduction of the plastic reserve is applied until the class 4 limit is reached. Note that Eurocode 9, SIA 263, AISC 360, and AISI S100 already prescribe this gradual transition.
The modified classification limits published in the SEMI-COMP+ research report have also been implemented in SCIA Engineer. It is important that these limits be used in the case of semi-plastic design of class 3 sections, because these limits correspond to the safety level of EC3 when the SEMI-COMP+ design rules are applied.
The Steel design performs a comprehensive analysis of all defined or generated load combinations to find the extreme values of section and stability utilisation:
The Steel design module benefits from an interactive reporting interface, where the results of the design are easily accessible in various forms:
The benefit of these reporting features is twofold: on one hand, the design process is accelerated, and on the other hand, it is possible to create project documentation that is complete and transparent to convince any third-parties and regulatory authority about the quality and scope of the performed structural design verifications.
Required modules: