This subject develops the design criteria for steel elements, providing the foundations to participate in integrative structural projects, contributing to the civil engineer's profile with the ability to design steel structures.
Steel is the perfect structural material, as we see it in countless structures such as bridges, buildings, towers.
The supposed perfection of this metal, perhaps the most versatile of all structural materials, seems more reasonable when considering its high strength, low weight, ease of fabrication, and other convenient properties.
Members in tension are defined as structural elements subjected to axial tension forces. A ductile steel member, without holes and subjected to a tension load, can resist, without fracturing, a greater load than the one corresponding to the product of its cross-sectional area and the yield stress of the steel, thanks to strain hardening.
A structural connection is the point of junction between structural elements, with the most commonly used connections in construction being based on screws or welding. They are of utmost importance. An inadequate connection, which can be the 'weak link' in a structure, has been the cause of numerous failures. Statistics reveal that a higher percentage of structure failure is due to an error in the connection.
This subject contributes to the profile of the civil engineer by providing the ability to model structural systems in the plane and obtain displacements that occur under any loading condition, mechanical elements, and diagrams of normal forces, shear forces, and bending moments. The information obtained will be used in the structural design of concrete and steel elements.
The slope-deflection method was originally developed by Heinrich Manderla and Otto Mohr to study secondary stresses in trusses. Later, in 1915, G. A. Maney developed an improved version of this technique and applied it to the analysis of indeterminate beams and framed structures.
The method is named this way because it relates unknown slopes and deflections to the applied load on a structure.
The flexibility method involves finding equations that satisfy the compatibility and force-displacement requirements for the structure to determine redundant forces. Once these forces have been determined, the rest of the reaction forces on the structure are calculated by satisfying the equilibrium requirements.
This section will cover the topic of stiffness and its explanations, focusing especially on 3 topics: beams, trusses, and frames.
Solving trusses by the stiffness method is practical, but it requires very orderly calculations. An important factor to start working with a structure using this system is when each element of it (nodes, bars or members, calculation direction, etc.) begins to be labeled, making it possible to solve the system using the assembled structure matrix as proposed.
Solving frames by the stiffness method is practical, but it requires orderly calculations. An important factor to start working on a frame using this system is when each element of it begins to be labeled, making it possible to solve the system with the matrix of the assembled structure as proposed.