Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
This book details the planer stress, stability and frequency analysis of individual bracing units and, importantly, for the 3D stress, stability and frequency analysis of whole buildings consisting of such units. As multi-storey buildings consist of a great number of structural elements tools are needed to understand global behaviour, and the global critical load ratio, or "global safety factor", which characterises the health of the structure. The closed-form solutions help structural engineers to understand complex three-dimensional behaviour and thus to manipulate the stiffnesses and the location of the bracing units for optimum structural arrangement, and enable quick checks at the preliminary design stage. This new edition covers deflection and rotation analysis and provides a comprehensive accuracy analysis, and the book's website gives 16 downloadable computer worksheets (both in MathCad and Excel).
Synopsis
The structural analysis of multi-storey buildings can be carried out using discrete (computer-based) models or creating continuum models that lead to much simpler albeit normally approximate results. The book relies on the second approach and presents the theoretical background and the governing differential equations (for researchers) and simple closed-form solutions (for practicing structural engineers). The continuum models also help to understand how the stiffness and geometrical characteristics influence the three-dimensional behaviour of complex bracing systems. The back-of-the-envelop formulae for the maximum deflection and rotation, load shares, fundamental frequency and critical load facilitate quick global structural analysis for even large buildings. It is shown how the global critical load ratio can be used for monitoring the health of the structure acting as a performance indicator and safety factor. Evaluating the results of over sixteen hundred calculations, the accuracy of the procedures is comprehensively demonstrated by comparing the discrete and continuum results. Nineteen worked examples illustrate the use of the methods, whose downloadable MathCad and Excel worksheets (www.crcpress.com/ 9780367350253) can also be used as templates for similar practical situations.