461615: Theory of Stability

Chapter 4 Beam Column

Dr. Abdul Razzaq Touqan and Dr. Monther

Dwaikat
Civil and Building Engineering Departments
An-Najah National University
Beam Columns
 A beam column is a structural member subjected to both
bending and compression or tension.
 If the axial load is dominant, the member is treated as a
column.
 If the moment is dominant, the member is treated as a
beam.
 In general, all members in a metal frame or truss are
beam columns.
 For the following cases, it is assumed that neither the
moment nor the axial load dominates to the extent that
the other can be neglected.

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Beam Columns in Rigid Frames

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Beam Columns in Trusses

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Behavior of Beam Columns
 The bending moment inside the span of the beam-column is
composed of the primary moment, or often called the first-order
moment, and the additional moment caused by the product of
the axial force and the deflection. This is the second-order
moment.
 It plays an increasingly important role as the deflection
increases due to an increase in load.
 The relationship between the applied loads and the resulting
deflections is nonlinear.
 The bending moment demands a larger and larger proportion
of the flexural capacity, until the internal stiffness cannot keep
up with the demand of the external forces. Thus, a maximum
moment is reached.
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Behavior of Beam Columns
 Beyond the deformation at the maximum moment, the
moment capacity is reduced.
 In case of pure gravity loading, such as under snow load,
the attainment of the maximum capacity will result in
immediate collapse of the member, and perhaps the
whole structure.
 The moment-versus-end slope behavior of a planar
beam-column is illustrated in the following slide.

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Behavior of Beam Columns

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Behavior of Beam Columns
 The first case considered is a prismatic member of length
L that is subjected at its ends by moments Mo and Mo,
where  is the ratio of the two end moments.
 The range of values of  is -1 
1, where the value +1 represents
the case where the two end
moments cause single curvature
deflection under uniform moment,
as shown in Figure

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Behavior of Beam Columns
 As mentioned before, the moment ratio is in the range -
1  1. Maximum moment multipliers  are listed for
three other loading conditions in Table 4.1.
 The first column depicts the structure, while the second
column gives the formula for the maximum moment
obtained from statics for the cases when the axial force is
zero.
 The third column is the formula for the moment
magnification factor. This factor is dependent on the axial
load and the loading condition. The axial load effect is
defined by

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Behavior of Beam Columns

 Each of the moment amplification factors approaches

infinity as the axial load approaches the Euler load as was
discussed in initial imperfections.

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Behavior of Beam Columns

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Behavior of Beam Columns

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Moment amplification factor
 For cases of beam columns subjected to end
moments, the amplification factors depends not
only on the magnitude of the axial force but also
on the magnitude of ratio of end moments

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Moment amplification factor
 In summary the application of the axial load on the deflected member
causes a second order moment.
 The maximum moment can be obtained by multiplying the first order
(applied) moment by a moment amplifier.
 In double curvature bending, the maximum moment is sometimes
equal to the applied end moment.
 In transversely loaded members without applied end moments, the
maximum moment will occur within the span of the beam.
 An approximate amplification factor was determined empirically by
Austin (1961):

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Principle of superposition
 The principle of superposition holds for beam
columns so long as the axial force remains
constant, and the same axial force is applied to
each component of the solution.
 Table 4.3 gives slopes at the end of members for
different load cases

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Finding slopes at the end of members

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