Eurocodes for steel design

corklad86

hey lads,

Im currently studying civil engineering in carlow IT(not a great course) and we have started to use eurocode for the design of steel members and they fair confussing compare to the BS codes

Has anyone an idea were i could find a simple explanations for eurocode 3 and eurocode 1,(for some reason you have to read them together) formulae and how they are to be used.

I only ask cos our lecture is hasnt a clue what is goin on in them

thanks.

bnt

That was the subject of half a course I just took at UCD - and there were no simple explanations, really. EC1 Part 1-1 is an overview, and it gets more detailed from there. The explanations we were given weren't much simpler than the contents of the Eurocodes themselves. (You have copies, right?)

If I would try to write a simple explanation, it would be something like this: the basic principle in Eurocodes is Limit State Design, and you need to be familiar with those principles to make sense of EC3. It's common sense in theory: calculate the ability of each member to take a load (resistance), calculate the load that will be placed on it (design load), and the former must exceed the latter.

There are two basic limit states:

• Design Limit State: ensuring that the structure doesn't fall down
• Serviceability Limit State: ensuring that the structure behaves acceptably e.g. in deflection.

EC3 is concerned with calculating those design loads, resistances and limit states, which involves classifying the sections, and calculating lots of different reduction factors to apply to resistances, such as a factor for resistance to lateral torsion buckling. That's about as simple as I can make it - the rest is the detail in EC3. I hope that helps - I need the help too, with an exam on it next week. :eek: