Beams and Frames Having Non-prismatic

Members
By: Dr. Nur Liza Rahim
Attendance
 Deflections of Non-prismatic Member

• Often to save material,

girders used for long
spans on bridges &
buildings are designed
to be nonprismatic
(variable moment of
inertia)
• The most common
forms of structural
members are as shown
Deflections of Non-prismatic Member
• We can use the principle of virtual work or Castigliano’s Theorem to
compute their deflections
• The equation are:
Mm l l ¶MM
D= ò
0 EI
dx or D = ò0 ¶P EI
dx

• For a non-prismatic member, I to be expressed as a function of the

length coordinate x
• In this case, Simpson’s rule or some other numerical technique will
have to be used to carry out the integration
 • It is also possible to use a
geometric technique such as the
Deflections of moment-area theorems or the
Nonprismatic conjugate-beam method to
determine the approximate
Member deflection of a non-prismatic
member
Loading Properties of Non-prismatic Members
using the conjugate-beam method

A conjugate-beam analysis is a
practical numerical method that
can be used to determine the
fixed end moments & stiffness
& carry-over factors for a
member that has a variable
moment of inertia
The computations for the
stiffness and carry-over factors
can be checked by noting an
important relationship that
exist between them
Loading
• Graphs & tables have been made available to
properties of determine this data for common shapes used in
nonprismatic structural design
members
available from • A portion of these tables is listed in the table
publications
 Loading properties of nonprismatic members
available from publications

• As noted, the fixed end moments and carry-over factors are found
from the tables
• The absolute stiffness factor can be determined using the tabulated
stiffness and found from

k AB EI C k BA EI C
KA = ; KB =
L L
 Moment distribution for structures having
non-prismatic members
• Once the fixed end moments & stiffness & carry-over factors for the
non-prismatic members of a structure have been determined,
application of the moment-distribution method follows the same
procedure as outlined previously

• Beam pin supported at far end

K ' A = K A (1 - CABCBA )
 Example 13.1
Determine the internal moments at the supports of the beam
shown. The beam has a thickness of 0.3 m and E is constant.
Solution

Since the haunches are parabolic, we will the table to obtain

the moment-distribution properties of the beam.
For span AB,

1.5
a A = aB = = 0.2
7.5
1.2 - 0.6
rA = rB = = 1.0
0.6
C AB = C BA = 0.619; k AB = k BA = 6.41
 The beam has a thickness of 0.3 m

Solution
æ1ö
6.41E ç ÷(0.3)(0.6) 3
kEI c è 12 ø
K AB = K BA = = = 4.615(10-3 )E
L 7.5
Since the far end of span BA is pinned, we will modify the
stiffness factor of BA using eqn 13.3

K' BA = K BA( 1 - C AB C BA ) = 4.615( 10 -3 )E[ 1-0.619( 0.619 )]

= 2.847( 10 -3 )E

(FEM)AB = -(0.0956)(30)(7.5) 2 = -161.33kNm

(FEM)BA = 161.33kNm
For span BC,
Problem 13.7

• Use the moment-

distribution method to
determine the moment
at each joint of the
frame. The supports at A
and C are pinned and the
joints at B and D are
fixed connected. Assume
that E is constant and the
members have a
thickness of 0.25 m. The
haunches are straight so
use Table 13–1.
For span BD
For span AB and CD
 0.6𝐸𝐼
𝐷𝐹!" = = 0.3314
0.6𝐸𝐼 + 1.211𝐸𝐼

1.211𝐸𝐼
𝐷𝐹!# = = 0.6686
0.6𝐸𝐼 + 1.211𝐸𝐼

1.211𝐸𝐼
𝐷𝐹#! = = 0.6686
0.6𝐸𝐼 + 1.211𝐸𝐼

0.6𝐸𝐼
𝐷𝐹#$ = = 0.3314
0.6𝐸𝐼 + 1.211𝐸𝐼
Thank You …