curved column design verifications

[ingthere]

Hi!

I need to design a curved column, sth like you can see in the attachment. What verifications do I need to do? I am thinking to obtain the stresses at the base, and verify the section..

What else should I check for such an element?

It's a 3 meters high column with not much load on it (a bus stop kind of structure) What checks would you do? Also any codes that I can refer?

Thanks

 

[ingthere]

no ideas?

 

[JoshPlumSE]

I wasn't able to view your attachement. Even so, my thoughts are the following:

1) Make sure you run a 2nd order analysis to capture the elastic buckling effects directly in the analysis.

2) Better yet, use reduced stiffness in your 2nd order analysis as a means of accounting for in-elastic buckling.

3) Add in some assumed member imperfections or notional loads. This will help the 2nd order analysis to capture the buckling effect during the analysis.


Essentially, all I'm really saying is to use the AISC Direct Analysis Method.


4) I'd be conservative and use an unbraced length for my member capacity calculations which was equal to the full curved length of the member. Whether I used a K=1 or a K = 2.1 would depend on how conservative I want to be. If I follow all the rest of the AISC direct analysis method provisions, I should be able to get away with a K = 1.0. However, if I'm starting to doubt the apprropriateness of the DA Method for this type of structure, then I'd probably up the K a bit.... when in doubt, make it stout.

 

[hokie66]

I would just design it as a cantilevered beam. With not much vertical load, wind loading will probably control, and it will work more like a flagpole than a building column.

 

[ingthere]

Thanks for the comments.. Since the axial loads are actually small, I will go for a beam-column design, I suppose the buckling deformation will be small enough to be neglected.. But thanks for reference JoshPlum, now I know what to do if I had bigger axial loads..