Buckling Loads for Built-up Columns with Stay Plates

A method to analyze the buckling load for a built-up column was introduced by Engesser in the last century. Many attempts have been made since then to derive more accurate solutions. All these continuum methods based on the Engesser approach do not consider the effect of stay plates at the end of built-up columns. Atle Gjelsvik modified Engesser's theory to eliminate this drawback. A generalized form of the governing equations provided by Gjelsvik has been presented here, and it is applicable to any built-up column with a continuous web. The buckling loads for built-up columns are obtained for different boundary conditions of practical importance. They are compared with solutions obtained using the Euler and Engesser methods. The solutions are presented in graphical form for easy use. The classical Engesser method is always conservative.