Journal of Constructional Steel Research 60 (2004) 1481–1494

www.elsevier.com/locate/jcsr

The moment-gradient factor in lateral–

torsional buckling on inelastic castellated
beams
Amin Mohebkhah

Department of Civil Engineering, Engineering Faculty, Urmia University, Urmia, Iran
Received 28 August 2003; received in revised form 19 January 2004; accepted 3 February 2004

Abstract

It is well known that if the moment in an I-beam is not constant throughout, the lateral–
torsional buckling moment is greater than the same moment in pure bending. In other
words, the value of moment-gradient factor (Cb) is always greater than unity. However, the
effect of discontinuities in the cross section on the moment-gradient factor has not been
studied, and it is not known whether the Cb factor given by AISC in Load and Resistance
Factor Design Specification for Structural Steel Buildings can be applied to castellated beams.
This paper develops a three-dimensional (3-D) finite-element model using ANSYS [User’s
manual, version 5.4, ANSYS Inc, Houston, PA, 1998] for the inelastic nonlinear flexural–
torsional analysis of castellated beams and uses it to investigate the effects of slenderness on
the moment-gradient factor of simply supported castellated beams. It is found that the Cb
factors given by AISC-LRFD are not accurate for the cases considered in this paper, in
which castellated beam buckles inelastically. Therefore, instead of using a constant Cb factor
for any of the cases, alternative equations for evaluating the Cb factor for each case in terms
of the beam’s modified slenderness is proposed.
# 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Inelastic lateral–torsional buckling; Finite element method; Load and resistance factor design;
Castellated beam; Moment-gradient factor

Tel.: +98 21 8011001x3385; fax: +98 21 8005040.
E-mail address: amoheb@modares.ac.ir (A. Mohebkhah).

0143-974X/$ - see front matter # 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jcsr.2004.02.002
1482 A. Mohebkhah / Journal of Constructional Steel Research 60 (2004) 1481–1494

Nomenclature

bf width of flange
Cw warping section constant
d serial depth of original section
E Young’s modulus of elasticity
Et tangent modulus
Fy yield stress of material
G shear modulus of elasticity
h depth of castellated section
Iy second moment of area about y-axis
J torsion section constant
L unbraced length of castellated beam
Mocr elastic buckling uniform moment
Rf reduction factor
tf thickness of flange
tw thickness of web
Z plastic section modulus
ey steel strain at yield
es steel strain at the onset of strain-hardening
k modified flexural–torsional slenderness of castellated beam

1. Introduction

I-beams subjected to flexure have much greater strength and stiffness in the plain
in which the loads are applied (major axis) than in the plane of minor axis. Unless
these members are properly braced against lateral deflection and twisting, they are
subjected to failure by lateral–torsional buckling prior to the attainment of their
full in-plane capacity. Lateral–torsional buckling is a limit state of structural
usefulness where the deformation of a beam changes from predominantly in-
plane deflection to a combination of lateral deflection and twisting while the load
capacity remains first constant, before dropping off due to large deflection and
yielding.
Castellated beams are made by either flame cutting or automatically cutting a
rolled beam’s web in a zigzag pattern along its centerline and then rejoining the
two halves by welding. This opening up of the original rolled beam increases
its section modulus of inertia about its major axis and results in greater vertical
bending strength and stiffness without any change in weight [11].
The presence of web openings in castellated beams introduces three additional
modes of failure at the perforated sections:

. Lateral–torsional buckling of one or several web posts [8],

. Web post buckling due to the shear force [8,12],
 A. Mohebkhah / Journal of Constructional Steel Research 60 (2004) 1481–1494 1483

. Formation of a Vierendeel mechanism [8],

. Vertical buckling of web posts, when the openings are closely spaced [4].

Therefore, the presence of large web openings may have a severe penalty on the
load carrying capacities of castellated beams, depending on the shapes, the sizes,
and the location of the openings.
AISC determines the lateral–torsional buckling moment based on assumption of
constant moment between lateral supports of the beam. The use of the equation
for evaluating critical moment using a uniform moment diagram as the basic case
is intended to ease analytical analysis. Also, a beam with a uniform moment dia-
gram is the most severe case in the lateral–torsional buckling consideration.
The critical buckling moment of a simply supported I-beam in the case of pure
bending is given by [15]
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
p pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
Mocr ¼ EIy GJ ð1 þ W 2 Þ ð1Þ
L
where
rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
p ECw
W¼ ð2Þ
L GJ
L is the unbraced length which is the span length in this case. Eq. (1) is derived for
the constant moment and so the resulting differential equation describing the equi-
librium conditions of the beam at its slightly deformed state is linear with constant
coefficients. Beams in practical situation will, of course, be subjected to a wide var-
iety of loadings, thus producing non-uniform moment along the length of the
beam. In this condition, the resulting governing differential equation will have vari-
able coefficients. For such cases, closed-form solution is not available and recourse
must be had to numerical and approximate procedures to obtain the critical loads.
The effect of moment gradient on the critical moment can easily be accounted
for by the use of an equivalent uniform moment factor Cb. The nominal moment for
the beam in this case can be obtained from [3]
Mn ¼ Cb Mocr ð3Þ
Beams show three ranges of behavior: (1) elastic buckling, which governs for
long unbraced beams (of importance during construction); (2) inelastic buckling,
when instability occurs after some portions of the beam have yielded; and (3) plas-
tic behavior, where the unbraced length is short enough so the yielding of whole
section occurs before any type of buckling happens.
When a beam behavior is elastic, the nominal moment is given by Eq. (3) and for
a beam with a low slenderness that buckles inelastically is as follows [9]
  
Lb  Lp
Mn ¼ Cb Mp  ðMp  Mr Þ  Mp ð4Þ
Lr  Lp
Eq. (4) implies that AISC [1] proposes a constant value of Cb for all ranges of
inelastic beam’s slenderness. And also, it should be mentioned that the moment
1484 A. Mohebkhah / Journal of Constructional Steel Research 60 (2004) 1481–1494

capacity obtained by multiplying the moment by Cb in Eq. (4) may not be larger
than the plastic moment (Mp ¼ Fy Z). There are different values for Cb in AISC-
LRFD depending on the load conditions of the beam. For instance, the values of
Cb factor for distributed and concentrated loads applied at shear center are 1.13
and 1.35, respectively [1].
Laboratory tests have been conducted to study the lateral–torsional buckling
behavior of castellated beams by Nethercot and Kerdal [8,11], and Showkati [7].
Other researchers have studied this problem by means of finite element method,
e.g. Mohebkhah [10], and Showkati [13].
For some of the studies mentioned above, it seems that failure by lateral–
torsional instability of castellated beams is approximately similar to that of plain-
webbed beams [11]. However, the most recent results presented in [10] have shown
a large influence of castellated beam’s slenderness on the moment-gradient factor.
The results of many studies of evaluating the moment-gradient factor in flex-
ural–torsional buckling on elastic plain-webbed beams have been summarized in the
Guide to Stability Design Criteria for Metal Structures [6], Trahair [16], and in
Suryoatmono and Ho [14]. However, it has not been investigated yet whether the
given Cb factor in references can be applied to beams especially castellated beams
that buckle inelastically.
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of moment gradient (pro-
ducing both moment and shear) on the inelastic flexural–torsional buckling of cas-
tellated beams. For this purpose, a finite-element model based on the commercial
software package ANSYS [2] is developed for the nonlinear inelastic flexural–
torsional analysis of castellated beams with a wide variety of slenderness. And also,
it was used to investigate the accuracy of the Cb factors in AISC-LRFD [1] for
several bending moment diagrams considered in this paper.

2. Nonlinear finite-element model

To investigate the inelastic flexural–torsional buckling behavior of standard

Iranian castellated beams with hexagonal openings, a nonlinear inelastic finite-
element model has been developed based on the assumptions that the cross section
of the beam is doubly symmetric.
2.1. Mesh and material properties

The nonlinear computations were performed using the commercial finite element
software package ANSYS [2]. ANSYS has the ability to consider both geometric
and material nonlinearities in a given model. However, all modeling reported
herein only considers nonlinear material influences. Four side shell elements
SHELL 43 [2] from the ANSYS element library were used to model the web, flange
(top and bottom) and the stiffeners. Flanges were modeled with two elements
across the width. Buckling analyses with mesh sizes about 40  40 mm showed
convergence of the buckling load. The mesh arrangement used for an analysis is
shown in Fig. 1
 A. Mohebkhah / Journal of Constructional Steel Research 60 (2004) 1481–1494 1485

Fig. 1. Finite element mesh.

The trilinear elastic–plastic strain-hardening stress–strain curve of Fig. 2 is

assumed.
Young’ modulus E was set to 210 GPa and Poisson’s ratio was set to 0.3.
Residual stresses were not considered in this work, though it is relevant in this type
of analysis.
2.2. Loads and restraints
Simply supported castellated beam, CPE140 (d ¼ 14, bf ¼ 7:3, tf ¼ 0:69,
tw ¼ 0:47 cm), with different spans length are chosen under pure bending, uniformly

Fig. 2. Uniaxial constitutive model considered.

1486 A. Mohebkhah / Journal of Constructional Steel Research 60 (2004) 1481–1494

Fig. 3. Castellated beam and opening geometry.

distributed loading, and concentrated loading conditions in order to evaluate the Cb

factor for them. A typical configuration of the expanded beam, and the notation
adopted are shown in Fig. 3. All beams were provided with bearing stiffeners at
support and concentrated load points. And also, it should be mentioned that in
finite element analysis of beams subjected to pure bending, the end moments were
applied as couples in order to prevent web local yielding as shown in Fig. 4.
Owing to the presence of castellations on web, it is not possible to apply the uni-
form distributed load or the concentrated load at shear center. To overcome this
problem, it is logical to apply half of the load (w=2) at top flange and the next half
at bottom flange. Because, in this case, the produced torsional couples due to these
loads about shear center axis, offset the effect of each other and the loads behave as
a uniformly distributed load or a concentrated load at shear center.
A full Newton–Raphson procedure is used in conjunction with an arc length
control iterative strategy [5] and an automatic incrementation strategy to solve the
nonlinear equations of (15). The sign of the initial load increment follows the sign
of the determinant of the tangent stiffness matrix.
A convergence criterion based on the maximum norm of the incremental dis-
placements is adopted. In the incremental-iterative process, each load step consists
of the application of an increment of the external loads and subsequent iterations
to restore equilibrium.

Fig. 4. Applying the end moments.

 A. Mohebkhah / Journal of Constructional Steel Research 60 (2004) 1481–1494 1487

Fig. 5. Castellated beam under two-point loading [11].

Table 1
Details of castellated beam M5-1 and test result [11]
Castellated d h d1, d3 d2 bf tf tw Fy Mexp
section (mm) (mm) (mm) (mm) (MPa) (108 N mm)
534  127  39 350 1.5d 0.29d 0.25d 124.4 10.8 7.0 280 2.03

3. Validation of the modeling technique

As mentioned previously, nine experimental tests were carried out by Nethercot

and Kerdal [11] as part of a Ph.D. thesis aimed at studying the lateral–torsional
buckling of castellated beams. Dimensions of the test castellated beam M5-1
(534  127  39), according to Figs. 3 and 5, are given in Table 1.
The aforesaid castellated beam under two-point loading was analyzed using a
nonlinear buckling analysis. Experimental ultimate load given in Ref. [11] was
compared to validate the FEA. The agreement was good between the experimental
maximum moment and that obtained by nonlinear FEA.
The maximum moment obtained by FEA was 2:05  108 N mm, which repre-
sents an increase of just 1% in comparison with the value of Mexp attained in the
test. The difference in the value of moment could be due to necessary differences in
the material properties of the experiment and finite-element model. In the report of
Nethercot and Kerdal [11], only the yield stresses of the flange and web were given.
Residual stresses may have had some influence in the experimental results. That is
mainly due to the welding between the two halves. Not enough information con-
cerning this topic was found in the literature.

4. Nonlinear analysis of the castellated beams

After validating the finite-element model, a nonlinear analysis was performed

looking at another factor that affects the value of Cb factor on castellated beams.
That factor is the beam’s slenderness. Two loading conditions producing shear
force are considered: concentrated load and uniformly distributed load at shear
1488 A. Mohebkhah / Journal of Constructional Steel Research 60 (2004) 1481–1494

center. Using AISC-LRFD for the castellated beam CPE140, we obtain

Lr ¼ 305 cm
Lp ¼ 95:3 cm

and also the plastic moment for the castellated beam, having the properties of the
hole cross section is given as follows [10]

Mp ¼ Fy  ð2QÞ ¼ Fy bbf tf ðh  tf Þ þ 36tw ðh  6tf Þð5h  6tf Þc

ð5Þ
Mp ¼ 29:05 kN m

4.1. Concentrated loading

The selected simply supported castellated beams of CPE140 subjected to a con-
centrated load at shear center with different spans length, the critical buckling
loads, and the computed Cb factors are shown in Table 2. The table also shows the
Cb factor given by AISC for comparison.
Data in Table 2 are plotted as a Cb–L curve, which shows the variation of
moment-gradient factor of the beams with the laterally unbraced length Lb, against
the Design Cb factor given by AISC-LRFD in Fig. 6.
It is seen that in the inelastic range of unbraced length (Lp < L < Lr ), the Cb
factor given by AISC is always larger than those obtained using the nonlinear
finite element method. And also, the value of Cb is not constant in the whole range
of castellated beam’s slenderness, while AISC gives a constant value of 1.35 for any
range of slenderness (Eqs. (3) and (4)). The difference between the Cb factors com-
puted using nonlinear finite element analysis and given by AISC decreases as the
unbraced length increases. Note also that the difference between the two curves for
L < 294 cm is more than 3%. For elastic castellated beams, both the given values
are coincident.
4.2. Uniformly distributed loading

As in the previous section, the selected simply supported castellated beams of

CPE140 subjected to a uniformly distributed load at shear center with different

Table 2
Cb factors for the castellated beam under concentrated loading
L (m) M (kN m), FEM P (KN), FEM PL=4 (kN m) Cbp Cb AISC
(1) (2) (3) (4) ð4Þ=ð2Þ
1.26 30.80 82.5 25.9875 0.844 1.35
1.68 29.64 66.4 27.8880 0.941 1.35
2.10 28.44 54.0 28.3500 0.997 1.35
2.52 22.56 43.3 27.2790 1.209 1.35
2.94 18.32 32.8 24.1080 1.316 1.35
3.36 15.40 24.6 20.6640 1.342 1.35
4.20 11.60 14.9 15.6240 1.347 1.35
 A. Mohebkhah / Journal of Constructional Steel Research 60 (2004) 1481–1494 1489

Fig. 6. Cb–L curve for the castellated beam under concentrated loading.

spans length, the critical buckling loads, and the computed Cb factors are shown in
Table 3 for comparison.
By conducting the same procedure as in the concentrated load case, the effect of
various L values on the Cb factor of the laterally unbraced castellated beam is
plotted against the Design Cb factor given by AISC-LRFD in Fig. 7.
It can be also seen that in this loading case the Cb factors computed using AISC
are always larger than those obtained using the nonlinear finite element method for
inelastic castellated beams. In other words, the value of Cb is not constant in the
whole range of castellated beam’s slenderness, while AISC gives a constant value of
1.13 for any range of slenderness (Eqs. (3) and (4)). The difference between the Cb
factors computed using nonlinear finite element analysis and given by AISC
decreases as the unbraced length increases. Note also that the difference between
the two curves for L < 252 cm is more than 3%. For elastic castellated beams, both
the given values are coincident.

Table 3
Cb factors for the castellated beam under uniform loading
L (m) M (kN m), FEM W (kN/m), FEM WL2 =8 (kN m) Cbw Cb AISC
(1) (2) (3) (4) ð4Þ=ð2Þ

1.26 30.80 147 29.17 0.947 1.13

1.68 29.64 83.8 29.56 0.997 1.13
2.10 28.44 52.19 28.76 1.012 1.13
2.52 22.56 31 24.61 1.091 1.13
2.94 18.32 19 20.53 1.121 1.13
3.36 15.40 12.4 17.50 1.136 1.13
4.20 11.60 6 13.23 1.140 1.13
1490 A. Mohebkhah / Journal of Constructional Steel Research 60 (2004) 1481–1494

Fig. 7. Cb–L curve for the castellated beam under uniform loading.

5. Parametric analysis

Now, for more clarification and clear concluding, all the resulted values are con-
verted to dimensionless values. For this purpose, a reduction factor is suggested
and the value of unbraced length is turned into dimensionless values for each load-
ing condition as follows
rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
Mp
k¼ ð6Þ
Mocr
in which Mocr is the elastic buckling moment of the castellated beam having the
properties of the hole cross section given by Eq. (1); Mp is the plastic moment of
the castellated beam given by Eq.(5).
5.1. Concentrated loading

The data in Table 2 are converted to Table 4 using the modified dimensionless
slenderness parameter k.
The difference was evaluated with respect to AISC result. It is seen that in the
case of concentrated loading for k < 1:32, AISC gives higher Cb value (i.e. 1.35)
than the finite element results and the difference between the two approaches is
more than 3%. This fact suggests that the value given by AISC should not be used
in this range (i.e. for inelastic castellated beams).
The variation of the reduction factor with the slenderness k of the unbraced cas-
tellated beam is shown in Fig. 8.
Fig. 8 also shows a three-degree polynomial regression equation (r2 ¼ 0:98) for
the reduction factor computed using finite element method. For any value of modi-
fied slenderness, the corresponding reduced Cb factor can easily be computed as
 A. Mohebkhah / Journal of Constructional Steel Research 60 (2004) 1481–1494 1491

Table 4
Variations of the reduction factor for concentrated loading
L (m) k Cbp FEM Cb AISC % difference Rf
(1) (2) (3) (4) ð3Þ=ð4Þ
1.26 0.663 0.844 1.35 60 0.62
1.68 0.853 0.941 1.35 43.48 0.70
2.10 1.026 0.997 1.35 35.42 0.74
2.52 1.182 1.209 1.35 11.64 0.90
2.94 1.324 1.316 1.35 2.58 0.97
3.36 1.454 1.342 1.35 0.61 0.99
4.20 1.685 1.347 1.35 0.23 1.00

follows

Cbrp ¼ 1:35  Rfp

in which

1:541k3 þ 5:012k2  4:725k þ 2:010 for k < 1:32
Rfp ¼
1 for k  1:32

As the modified slenderness increases, the reduced moment-gradient factor increases

and approaches the Cb factor given by AISC.

Fig. 8. Variations of the reduction factor versus the beam slenderness for concentrated loading.
1492 A. Mohebkhah / Journal of Constructional Steel Research 60 (2004) 1481–1494

Table 5
Variations of the reduction factor for uniform loading
L (m) k Cbw Cb AISC % difference Rf
(1) (2) (3) (4) ð3Þ=ð4Þ
1.26 0.663 0.947 1.13 19.31 0.84
1.68 0.853 0.997 1.13 13.29 0.88
2.10 1.026 1.012 1.13 11.70 0.89
2.52 1.182 1.091 1.13 3.60 0.96
2.94 1.324 1.121 1.13 0.84 0.99
3.36 1.454 1.136 1.13 0.55 1.00
4.20 1.685 1.140 1.13 0.92 1.00

5.2. Uniformly distributed loading

Again, the data in Table 3 are converted to Table 5 using the modified dimen-
sionless slendernes parameter k. It is seen that in the case of uniformly distributed
loading for k < 1:2, AISC gives higher Cb value (i.e. 1.13) than the finite element
results and the difference between the two approaches is more than 3%. This fact
suggests that the value given by AISC should not be used in this range.
For this case of loading, the variation of the reduction factor with the modified
slenderness k of the unbraced castellated beam is plotted in Fig. 9 along with the
resulting regression equation.
As it can be seen, an exponential regression equation (r2 ¼ 0:96) shows a good
approximation for the reduction factor computed using finite element method. For
any value of modified slenderness, the corresponding reduced Cb factor can be

Fig. 9. Variations of the reduction factor versus the beam slenderness for uniform loading.
 A. Mohebkhah / Journal of Constructional Steel Research 60 (2004) 1481–1494 1493

computed as follows
Cbrw ¼ 1:13  Rfw
in which

0:7138e0:2418k for k < 1:2
Rfw ¼
1 for k  1:2
It is obvious that for k > 1:2, both finite element approach and AISC agree. How-
ever, for smaller modified slenderness values, the two approaches differ from 3% to
19.3%.
The difference in the behavior could be due to web local buckling. This is
because, to avoid local buckling, AISC-LRFD gives p a ffiffiffiffiffi
limitation for the height–
thickness ratio of the I-beams’ web as d=tw  1676= Fy . However, this ratio in
castellated beams due to castellation process is greater than the limitation, and
local buckling may take place. Another source of discrepancy in the results might
be due to yielding the T-sections above and below the holes inducing a premature
instability. This reduction in the Cb factor value on inelastic plain-webbed beams is
less than 7% [10].

6. Conclusion

The nonlinear lateral–torsional buckling of standard Iranian simply supported

castellated beams with a wide variety of modified slenderness was studied by means
of the finite element method. The modified slenderness of these beams appears to
have a significant influence on the moment-gradient factor. In other words, the
value of Cb is not constant in the whole range of castellated beam’s slenderness,
while AISC gives a constant value for any range of slenderness. Therefore, it can
be concluded that evaluating the moment-gradient factor depends not only on
loading conditions but also on the modified slenderness of the castellated beams.
The Cb factors given by AISC for inelastic beams are higher than those obtained
using the finite element approach, which can lead to an unsafe design. The decrease
in the Cb factor increases as the modified slenderness decreases. Since, as the slen-
derness ratio decreases, more fibers of the beam become inelastic (increasing the
degree of plasticity) and only the elastic portion of the cross section remains effec-
tive in providing resistance to lateral buckling. The reduced moment-gradient factor
can be obtained by multiplying a reduction factor by the Cb factor given by AISC-
LRFD. For concentrated loading and uniform loading cases considered in this
paper, finite element based regression equations of evaluating the reduced Cb factor
are proposed. The equations are polynomial and exponential in terms of modified
slenderness of the castellated beams. This reduction in the Cb factor value of the
castellated beams might be due to web local buckling or yielding the T-sections
above and below the holes inducing a premature instability. However, owing to the
limited number of castellated beams studied herein, these findings are not yet
conclusive and further research must be carried out to establish a more proposal of
1494 A. Mohebkhah / Journal of Constructional Steel Research 60 (2004) 1481–1494

the moment-gradient factor on castellated beams for all the important loading
cases. And also, another factor which affects the value of Cb factor on inelastic cas-
tellated beams is boundary conditions, which must be taken into consideration for
future works.

Acknowledgements

I wish to express my appreciation to Professor D.A. Nethercot for sending me

his papers.

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