Proposed Steel Column Strength Criteria

The development of proposed design criteria is presented for pinned end columns for the load and resistance factor design provisions being developed for the American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC). Available test data have been examined by regression analysis to determine a practical column strength equation for design. The study resulted in the division of slenderness into three regions: a plastic region where slenderness does not effect column strength; an inelastic region where strength decreases linearly with increasing slenderness; and an elastic region where strength is defined by a hyperbola. Equations representing column strength in each of these regions are developed, and a resistance factor to be used with these equations is derived.