NONLINEAR INELASTIC ANALYSIS OF STEEL BEAM-COLUMNS .2. APPLICATIONS

In a companion paper, a nonlinear inelastic analysis of the biaxial bending and torsion of beam-columns was presented. Approximations were not made in the early stage of the development, and thus some significant terms were retained. The present paper uses a finite-element procedure of the companion paper to investigate numerically the elastic-plastic behavior of I-beams. The problems include the large-deflection in-plane elastic and inelastic behavior of columns and beam-columns; torsion of beams and beam-columns; eccentric and inclined loading of beams, the effects of initial crookedness and twist on the lateral buckling strength of beams; and the postbuckling flexural-torsional behavior of beams. The flexural-torsional design strength of steel 1-beams is also studied. The results indicate that the procedure is capable of carrying out an accurate nonlinear analysis including postbuckling analysis. It is demonstrated that ignoring some significant terms may lead to an overestimation of buckling loads, poor prediction of postbuckling behavior, and failure to find the correct maximum load capacity.