Analytical investigation and comparison between steel laced and battended columns

Abstract

Built-up (combined section) columns are widely used in steel construction especially for relatively long columns. Built-up columns are often used in steel buildings and bridges providing economical solutions in cases of large spans and/or heavy loads or in other words a built-up battened column is a kind of compression member consisting of two identical longitudinal elements slightly separated and connected to each other at only a few places along their length by means of battens. Depending on the way that the flanges are connected to each other, they can be grouped into laced and battened built-up columns. Since these sections often provide sufficient flexural stiffness to resist buck- ling without increasing the area of the sections. However, such built-up (combined section) columns are more flexible than solid columns with the same moment of inertia, which must be taken into account in the design. The ultimate capacity of battened columns mainly depends on the local behaviour of the components, the global behaviour of the column as well as the internal forces in the connecting elements. Mainly while considering designing of both built up column the designing procedure is same and it’s observed that the lacing column offers higher strength than that of the battened built up column. As per structure requirement as engineer we have to select any one of these two built-up compression members. So our aim is narrowed towards the study of behaviour of these two columns on various combinations of lodging and length and accordingly the cost of the column on stability criterion as per IS800:2007.