Design of a continuous frame

[xxmaqxx]

Hello SAP2000 colleagues,

I have a casted-casted 10m length beam. I created joints in the position 0,2,4,6,8 and 10m , then I created 5 frames (2 m. length each) connecting these joints with a IPE 270 cross section. After this I assign loads to the joints. I am designing with AISC and would like to consider the whole length of the beam for design. I don't want to design 5 members of 2 m length but only one member with 10 m length.

Is it possible to assign in SAP2000 a set of continuous frames to be designed as only one member ? . I don't want to modify the model by creating only one member and introducing the loads as a single points loads in frames.


Thanks for comments !

 

[wsg SE PE]

You question is a little unclear but yes, this is possible. You can run the steel design function and SAP will understand that your 5 frames are actually one single frame. That is, it'll calculate all necessary factors considering the actual length between lateral bracing points (not just nodes), etc. If you mean that you only want output considering all elements as a single element, no, SAP will output individual results for each frame.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/williamsgodfrey