Can the hand calculation check member buckling safely?

[@andybeeton6285]

I think the point is that it doesn't matter very much what effective length factor you assign to the stanchion, taken in isolation, because that isn't the element that primarily provokes the failure. It is a question of the whole system, but the beam web buckling seems the most crucial in this case. Even if you do a simple web buckling check, on the beam web, you get an answer that should ring alarm bells. 'Back in the day...' we would not have designed and detailed a connection like this - if we did not then have the tools to do a fairly rigorous analysis, such as is possible with this software, then we would have 'designed away' the problem in conjunction with prudent detailing. Whilst I'm an enthusiast for such tools, I feel that we should not become too dependent of software to do our thinking and we should avoid mechanistically 'box-ticking' our way through the design codes and standards.

[@ideastatica_en]

Hello, I agree with you completely. Engineering judgment and experience is the key. Such tools as Member helps you to prove your idea and whats more - produce a paper with code-check proving that clearly, so you are safe as the designer. And of course you have more complex situations where the judgement is uncertain...

[@Civil.Structural3000]

With two weak box members connected at the web of the column (weak axis of the column) why would an engineer assign a buckling length of 0.7 around the weak axis? Even before analysing or designing, one can know that such a high compression load the member would most probably buckle around it's weak axis and that the two box members can do nothing there for the stability, so why not directly assign a buckling length of 2.0 and ignore the contribution of the two box members?

[@ideastatica_en]

Hello, thats true, but not everybody shares the same opinion and would go for 0.7 as we can see from the poll. Its a bit discussed in the blog: www.ideastatica.com/blog/is-the-analytical-approach-enough-to-check-member-buckling

[@ПавелЩербатюк-б8т]

Such a nice lecture. Thanks!