TABLE OF CONTENTS The analysis of a beam-column involves the features of both deflection problem as a beam and stability problem as a column. All members deflect under loading, but in the case of beams the effect of this upon the overall geometry can be ignored. In the case of columns, however the deflections may be such as to add a significant additional moment. This is the main reason why beam-column analysis is complicated comparing with column analysis which is a pure eigenvalue or buckling problem as described in Chap. 6. As was studied in Chap. 4, rigorous elastic analysis of in-plane beam-columns is possible for most cases, although the use of formal mathematics leads to fourth-order differential equations. Once in the plastic or nonlinear range, however, these fourth-order differential equations are often intractable and recourse must be had to numerical methods to obtain solutions. This complexity comes mainly from the highly involved relationship between the generalized stresses and the generalized strains of cross sections in plastic range, that is, the relation between moment and curvature as was discussed in detail in Chap. 5. In the following six chapters, several numerical and analytical methods for plastic beam-columns are presented Before the actual presentation and discussion of these methods however, it will be useful to discuss here the general solution technique for elastic beam-columns based on elastic limit strength criterion, and basic equations for plastic beam-columns to be solved in the following chapters.
The conventional structural design has been...
