Structures 3 (2015) 236243

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Structures
journal homepage: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/structures

Unequally spaced lateral bracings on compression anges of steel girders

Hassan Mehri a,, Roberto Crocetti a, Per Johan Gustafsson b
a
b

Div. of Structural Engineering, Lund Univ., Box 118, Lund 22100, Sweden
Div. of Structural Mechanics, Lund Univ., Box 118, Lund 22100, Sweden

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 26 February 2015
Received in revised form 6 May 2015
Accepted 17 May 2015
Available online 2 July 2015
Keywords:
Lateral bracing
Stiffness requirement
Steel girder

a b s t r a c t
In the bridge sector, lateral bracings can be provided e.g. in the form of metal decks or horizontal truss bracings.
Those bracings are more efcient at the regions of maximum lateral shear deformations generated from
destabilizing forces of compression anges e.g. near to the twisting supports. A model is presented in this
paper, which relates the lateral buckling length of compression ange of steel girders to their lateral torsional
buckling moment and can be used to investigate stiffness requirement of lateral bracings applied on the compression anges between the twisting restraints. Analytical solutions were derived for the effects of bracing locations
and bracing stiffness values on buckling length of compression anges. Moreover, an exact and a simplied
solution for the effect of rotational restraint of shorter-spans on critical load value of the compression members
with unequally spanned lateral bracings were derived. The model can be suitable for design engineers to preliminary size the cross-section of beams and lateral bracings.
2015 The Institution of Structural Engineers. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction and background

Relatively little lateral bracings can greatly enhance load carrying capacity of slender steel columns and beams by limiting their out-of-plane
deformations [15]. However, improper restraint against lateral torsional
buckling can be detrimental. A number of bridge failures have occurred
due to improper lateral bracings. Two examples are: the collapse of The
Marcy Bridge [7] in New York, and Y1504 Bridge [2] in Sweden. These
bridges were designed with trapezoidal cross-sections and both collapsed due to global lateral torsional buckling during concreting of the
deck. No lateral bracings were used in the rst case, while stay-inplace corrugated metal sheets were designated to act as lateral stabilizing system in the latter bridge. However, for steel bridge applications,
Egilmez et al. [4] showed, both analytically and experimentally, that
corrugated metal decks if properly designed and connected to the
girders, can signicantly reduce lateral deformation of steel girders.
Yura et al. [16] derived a simplied expression for global buckling of
steel bridge girders which corresponded to the failure mode for the two
mentioned bridges. Lateral bracing at partial span near to the abutments
can enhance the load carrying capacity of the girders which are prone to
global buckling by creating a semi-clamp condition at the supports [16].
Mehri and Crocetti [7] showed that providing relatively soft truss bracings along a partial length of bridge span near to the abutments (e.g.
0:1 in Fig. 1), the global buckling of The Marcy Bridge could have been
avoided; where is the partial bridge span from the twisting supports
at both ends which are laterally braced by means of e.g. either truss
Corresponding author. Tel.: +46 46 222 7397.
E-mail addresses: Hassan.Mehri@kstr.lth.se (H. Mehri), Roberto.Crocetti@kstr.lth.se
(R. Crocetti), per-johan.gustafsson@construction.lth.se (P.J. Gustafsson).

bracings or corrugated metal decks. An example for the application of

the present study can be to estimate critical bending moment value of
such bridges by studying required lateral bracing stiffness near to the
abutments, see Fig. 1, in order to create semi-clamped boundary
conditions.
The exact solutions for bracing requirements and load carrying
capacity of compression members are only possible for simple cases,
with certain boundary and loading conditions. There have been numerous previous studies on bracing requirements of simple beams and
columns [17]. Among these studies, there are investigations on critical
moment value for a variety of loading and bracing conditions, and different cross-sectional properties. In a number of studies, Timoshenko's
energy approach was used to nd the optimal locations for bracings of
simple beam structures, see e.g. [11,13,14]. Some of the studies have
led to predicting conservative values for critical loads and stiffness of
bracings that are already included in some code specications. Finian
et al. [6] studied the stability of imperfect steel beams which were
restrained by means of a number of discrete elastic bracings, and gave
expressions to estimate the magnitudes of bracing forces.
Recommendations for critical moment values basically consist of
applying a number of coefcients that statistically give lower bound
results. For beams for instance, the coefcients are applied to critical
moment, obtained from e.g. Timoshenko's approach [10] to consider
the effects of different conditions such as moment gradient, load height,
cross-sectional symmetries and boundary conditions. Generally, those
recommendations have been presented for a limited number of simple
cases and can also lead to high discrepancies in the results, especially
when a combination of the effects is considered.
Winter [15] presented a model with rigid bars, which are hinged at
the locations of equally spaced transitional springs, to study the lateral

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.istruc.2015.05.003
2352-0124/ 2015 The Institution of Structural Engineers. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

H. Mehri et al. / Structures 3 (2015) 236243

Fig. 1. Global buckling of narrow steel girders and the performance of partial-span lateral
bracings.

bracing requirements of columns. Winter's model predicts a minimum

required (or ideal) stiffness value for those particular cases, which is
considered to serve equivalent to immovable lateral support. Beyond
this threshold stiffness, any increase in brace stiffness will not enhance
the critical load of the columns. Galambos [5] discussed column cases
with unequal spans. Plaut [8] studied the bracing requirements of columns with single lateral brace at an internal arbitrary point between
the pinned or elastic supports. For the mentioned cases, he also showed
that the ideal brace stiffness only exists when the bracing is at the center of a uniform column at mid-span. Plaut and Yang [9] also studied the
behavior of pinned-end columns with two intermediate lateral bracings
for two cases: equally spaced bracings, and a case with unequally spaced
bracings at a specic location. For a column with three-span lateral bracings, he stated that The optimal locations of the internal braces are not obvious unless full bracing is possible. The present paper discusses the
indications concerning the optimal locations for unequally spanned lateral bracings which gives the largest critical load for a given brace stiffness
value. The brace in this study were placed symmetrically with respect to
the midspan of the girders which is normally the case in practice.
However, the main purpose of this paper is to analytically investigate the applicability of a proposed simplied model to predict critical
moment of laterally braced girders varying the stiffness and location
of bracings. This approach can greatly benet design engineers either
before or after performing the nal design in order to size the beams
and bracings or to check the results obtained from using commercial
software. For this purpose, exact and approximate expressions were derived to examine the bending restraint effects of shorter spans on critical load values of beams with unequally spanned lateral bracings.
Typical design curves were also given from which critical load values
can be determined for different stiffness values and location of symmetrically placed lateral bracings. A curve was also given for the cases in
which providing lower stiffness than full bracing i.e. bracing stiffness
value that serves approximately equal to immovable support is thought
to be adequate in design. Finally, a comprehensive example is presented
to show the applicability of the proposed approach.

237

beams, and the plate of the two dimensional compression anges. S4R
is a common shell element type with four nodes, when modeling of
steel plates of columns, beams, and stiffeners is desired. Efforts were
undertaken to keep the meshing dimensional ratio equal to unity. At
least six elements were used across the width of the anges. No local
buckling was observed in any of the FE analyses. In the linear buckling
analyses of the compression anges, the members were xed at one
end, free to slide in the longitudinal direction at the other end, while
free to warp at both ends. The deformations perpendicular to the
plane of compression anges were not permitted in the twodimensional analyses. The three dimensional beams were xed at one
end, free to slide in the longitudinal direction at the other end, while
free to warp and restrained against twist at both ends. Bracings were
modeled with linearly elastic transitional springs connecting one node
of the shell elements to the ground. The beam components in the performed FE linear buckling analyses had elastic material properties. Generally speaking, the developed forces in the bracings are relatively little
while a signicant increase in the resistance can be normally achieved
with the relatively soft bracings. As a rule of thumb the bracing forces
are normally within the range of 12% of the applied force in compression members. Based on the conditions mentioned above, any local
effects at the junction of the springs with the shell elements that
might occur in nonlinear analyses with large deformationswere considered negligible.
The critical bending moment of a simply supported beam with
doubly symmetric cross-section subjected to uniform bending moment
about the strongest axis (yy) can be calculated using the following
equation [10]:
q
Mcr =Lb EIz GJ 2 E2 Iz C w =L2b ;

where
Lb
Beam span between the torsional restraints;
E and G Young's and shear moduli of beam material, respectively;
J, C w , and I z Cross-sectional properties including torsional constant,
warping constant, and moment of inertia about weakest
axis of beam, respectively, (see Fig. 2).
More accurate results can be obtained for I-beams with
monosymmetric cross-section considering Iz Izc t=cIzt [19];
where t, and c are distances from the neutral bending axis of the
monosymmetric cross-section to the centroids of tension and compression anges, respectively; Iz , Izc , and Izt are lateral moments of inertia of
the cross-section, the compression ange, and the tension ange,
respectively, about the weak axis, i.e. z axis in Fig. 2. However, for
the purpose of this paper, Iz 2I zc can be also used to obtain a reasonably
conservative prediction of critical moment values for the common
2

2. Results and discussions

I-shaped steel girder dimensions. Substituting C w with Iz h =4 for

doubly-symmetric I-beams (where h is the distance between the centroids of the anges), GJ C, and EC w C 1 , Eq. (1) can be rewritten as:

2.1. Theory and model development

Mcr

In this section of the study, Timoshenko's basic approach [10] for

critical moment of simply supported beams under uniform bending
moment was used to develop a model which can be used as a general
solution for beams that are laterally braced between the twisting supports at the level of their compression anges. The model relates
Timoshenko's beam subjected to equal and opposite bending moments
at each end to an equivalent couple forces arising in the anges of the
girders. The model and the derived analytical solutions were veried
by means of Finite Element (FE) analyses using ABAQUS commercial
software [1]. Quadrilateral, reduced integration, four-node shell
element S4R with sufcient meshing was used in the FE analyses to
model the anges and the web of the studied three dimensional

Fig. 2. A model that relates critical moment of beams to critical load of their compression
ange.

r

2 

2 EIz h=2L2b
1 CL2b =2 C 1 :

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H. Mehri et al. / Structures 3 (2015) 236243

Setting LT

q q
2
1 CL2b =2 C 1 1 2C=Ncr h , Eq. (2) can be

written as:
Mcr Ncr h  LT :

Eq. (3) claims that critical moment of I-beams can be approximately

modeled by two opposing horizontal forces, LT Ncr , applied at the centroids of the anges, as shown in Fig. 2; where, the compression ange
of the beams is regarded as a column with critical load of Ncr 2 EIzc =L2b .
Table 1 shows the variation of the LT coefcient with different
values of torsional properties (i.e. CL2b =2 C 1 ); where LT 1 represents beams with zero torsional stiffness, i.e. the web and the tension
ange give no contribution to controlling lateral torsional deformation
of the compression ange, and LT represents beams with innite torsional stiffness.
Theoretically, knowing the buckling length of the compression
anges, Eq. (3) can also be used to predict the critical moment value
for the cases of laterally restrained beams at the level of compression
anges. To generalize Eq. (3), the buckling load of compression ange
and LT factor can be calculated from Eqs. (4)(5), respectively.
2

Ncr 2 EIzc =le ;

LT

q q
2
2
1 Cle =2 C 1 1 2C=Ncr h

wherele is the buckling length of the compression ange of the beams,

and in this paper is indicated as le;, le;k, or Lb which corresponded to
cases in which the compression ange of the beams are respectively laterally restrained by means of immovable supports, compression ange of
beam is laterally restrained by means of elastic bracings, or the beam is
not laterally braced between the twisting supports.
Lateral torsional buckling of steel girders involves lateral movement
of their compression ange and the twist of the girder cross-section. In
the proposed approach presented in Eq. (3), the lateral translational
degree-of-freedom of the compression anges is considered by studying the buckling of the compression anges (see Eq. (4)). While, the torsional degree-of-freedom of the cross-section along the buckling length
of the compression angesi.e. le obtained from Eq. (4)is considered by the LT coefcient (see Eq. (5)). It must be noted that in the proposed approach the Vlasov condition [12] was assumed for the shape of
the cross-section of beams that remains unchanged during buckling
analyses. Therefore, no local buckling of cross-section was permitted.
2.1.1. Effects of different loading and boundary conditions
Eq. (3) was derived as a general solution, assuming the same boundary and loading conditions as of Eq. (1), i.e. simply supported beam
subjected to uniform bending moment. There have been numerous
studies on critical moment of simple beams to statistically determine
conservative effects of different conditions such as bending moment
gradients, loading height and cross-sectional asymmetries on critical
moment values obtained by Timoshenko's approach (i.e. Eq. (1)). For
instance, for a simply supported doubly-symmetric unbraced beam
under a uniformly distributed load on the level of the top ange, the
modication coefcient to be applied to Eq. (1) was suggested [17] to


be equal to 0:8 1:12  1:41 . Recommendations are limited to sim-

For the purpose of further studies on the proposed approach, the authors suggest an application of buckling length modication factor to account for the effects of distributed load at the level of top anges, which
is a typical case in bridge application e.g. during the construction phase.
2.1.2. Effects of imperfections and nonlinearities
Fig. 3 schematically shows a typical buckling curve recommended by
Eurocode 3 (2005), which is based on results from numerous laboratory
tests. Such curves relate critical compression load,Ncr, or critical bending
moment, M cr , values of columns or beams, respectively, to a reduction
factor, , which can be applied to e.g. plastic capacity of the crosssection in order to calculate the corresponding design values. The effect
of different shapes and magnitudes of initial imperfections, residual
stresses, material nonlinearities, eccentricities, etc. are conservatively
considered in the buckling curves. Thus, using such buckling curves,
the corresponding design values can be calculated for given critical
load values of beams, or columns obtained from Eq. (3), or Eq. (4),
respectively.
Winter's rigid bar model [15] gives the minimum required stiffness
values for columns with equally spaced lateral bracings. For the cases
of unequally spaced bracings, it is proposed that the buckling length
can be conservatively considered equal to the length of the largest
span [18]. However for the unequally braced columns (or compression
anges), the shorter portions of the beams create some bending restraint to the larger spans due to their different bending stiffness values.
In the present study, it is shown that this effect can be signicant
depending on the bending stiffness ratio of the adjacent spans with
unequal lengths. Fig. 3 illustrates the possible overdesign problem
which can occur ignoring the mentioned effects; where point A represents the critical value obtained approximating buckling length equal to
the distance between the bracing points, and point B represents the
critical value obtained considering the bending restraint effects of the
shorter spans; A ; and B are design reduction factors corresponding
to the critical load values marked as A and B, respectively; N P , or
MP are plastic capacities of the column or the beam cross-section; and
rel is lateral or lateral torsional slenderness ratios for the corresponding
column or beam, respectively.
The model explained in Section 2.1 was examined for beams with:
i) no lateral restraints (presented in Section 2.2), ii) lateral bracings that
served equal to immovable supports (presented in Section 2.3.), and
iii) lateral bracings that had elastic stiffness (presented in Section 2.4.),
all at the location of compression anges:.
2.2. Laterally unrestrained beams
Empirical recommendations are commonly used by design engineers to preliminary size the cross-section of bridge girders, which are
dependent on the length of girders, the width of their concrete decks,
and etc. Table 2 shows the values of LT for typical I-shaped built-up

ple beams and can be often difcult to be justied for some specic
cases in practice when a combination of effects is being considered.
Table 1
Variation of the LT coefcient for beams with different torsional properties.
CL2b =C 1
LT

0.0

0.1

10

100

1000

1.0

1.0

1.4

3.3

10.1

Fig. 3. Schematic illustration of typical design curves for exural or lateral torsional
buckling.

H. Mehri et al. / Structures 3 (2015) 236243

239

Table 2
Variations of LT values for different IPE proles, and common built-up steel girders. Lb
and d are length and depth of beams, respectively.

IPE proles
Built-up girders

Lb =d 16

Lb =d 20

Lb =d 24

1.451.60
1.402.30

1.601.85
1.502.60

1.802.15
1.602.80

bridge girders in steelconcrete composite bridges, and also for some

European Standard I-Beam proles (IPE 100 to IPE 750). In the builtup girders, the dimensions of cross-sections, i.e. the size of the anges
and the webs, were calculated utilizing the commonly used empirical
methods for 108 beam cases (varying girder depth from 600 mm to
3000 mm, in 300 mm increments; deck width from 3000 mm to
12000 mm, in 3000 mm increments, and length from 9600 mm to
72000 mm). As can be seen in Table 2, typical LT values vary within
the range of approximately 1.4 to 2.8.
In addition, Eq. (3) was used to calculate LT values for beam cases
(1)(5) as shown in Fig. 4 varying span lengths between 6 and 36 m;
the critical bending moments were obtained using FE buckling analyses.
In Fig. 5 LT values obtained are plotted against CL2b =C 1 values. The
results were also compared to the curve obtained from Eq. (5). The
comparison veried that Eq. (5) gives a unique curve for both doublyand mono-symmetric beams with the assumptions made earlier.
2.3. Beams with immovable lateral restraints
In general, for many of the cases encountered in practice, much
higher stiffness values than the ideal stiffness are normally provided
to resist lateral deformations of compression members at the brace
points. The effect of unequal spanning of lateral bracings on critical
load values of compression ange of beams are investigated in this
section, assuming that lateral stiffness values of the bracings are large
enough to function fairly similar to immovable supports. Fig. 6 illustrates the central-span of the compression ange of a beam which is
laterally restrained with immovable supports at a l distance from
either end, as an equivalent column with rotational spring stiffness of
EI=l at both ends; where EI is the bending stiffness of the cross-section
about the strong axis of compression ange, l is the length of the centralspan, and varies depending on values.
For beamcolumn BC in Fig. 6, the general differential equation is:
EIwx Nwx 0

where wx is the lateral deection of the beamcolumns AB and

BC.

Fig. 4. The studied beam cases: (1)(5), each with varying lengths = 6, 12, 24 and 36 m.

Fig. 5. Values of LT for the beam cases: (1)(5).

Applying boundary conditions

EIwx2l

wx20 wx2l 0; EIwx20

EI=l for beamcolumn BC gives:

cl sincl=1 coscl;

where c2 N=EI.
Eq. (7) has no close-form solution and should be solved numerically
for given values of . An analytical solution for the relationship
between and was of interest.
For the beamcolumn AB in Fig. 6, applying boundary conditions


wx10 wx1l 0; EIwx10 0; EIwx1l EI=l , and dividing
moment force EI=l by the slope at point B, w0x1l , gives the rotational stiffness at point B:
2

3= cl sincl=3 sinclcl coscl;

p
where cl N=Ncr , and N cr is the buckling load of the beam
column AB.
Eq. (8) gives an exact solution for the magnitude of bending restraint
of the side-spans to the central-span. Substituting the resulted value of
from Eq. (8) into Eq. (7) gives the buckling length of the compression member, i.e. le; , shown in Fig. 6. However, a simplied solution
for the relationship between and , rather than Eq. (8) can be also
derived. The following relationship between and can be written,
when second-order effects are neglected:
3=:

Eq. (9) can be modied by applying the amplication factor

1=1N=N cr to consider the second-order effects of the compression
force on the deformations; where N and Ncr are approximately 2 EI=l

Fig. 6. Bending restraint of side-spans with shorter length to the central-span of compression ange restrained by means of immovable lateral supports.

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H. Mehri et al. / Structures 3 (2015) 236243

2

and2 EI= 2 l , respectively. Thus, the relationship between and can

be approximated by the following equation to consider the secondorder effects:


3= 1 :

10

Comparisons between the results of Eqs. (8)(10) showed that the

approximate solution obtained from Eq. (10) was in excellent agreement with the exact solution obtained from Eq. (8) (see Fig. 7). Therefore, by substituting the values obtained from Eq. (10) (for a given
value of ) into Eq. (7), the buckling load of the laterally restrained
compression ange can be calculated when lateral stiffness of the
braces is sufciently large.
Table 3 shows the results of Eq. (7) for a number of values between
zero stiffness, which represents nil rotational stiffness provided by the
side-spans to the central-span, and innite stiffness which means that
the side-spans act as a fully-clamped support to the central-span.
To summarize, for different positions of the lateral supports (l),
critical moment values of beams can be calculated by substituting le;
obtained from Table 3 into Eqs. (3)(5). Table 3 showed signicant
decreases in the buckling length ratios, i.e. le; =l, of the compression
ange in the central-span, especially for the small values of . In bridge
design practice, it is often assumed that the buckling length of the
braced girder is conservatively equal to the distance between the bracing points, if adequate stiffness larger than the recommended value is
provided for the bracings [3]. The results in Table 3 show that this assumption can lead to a considerable over-design problem (it can be as
2 2
large as a factor of 4, see l =le; for small values of ).

Table 3
Buckling length of compression ange with immovable restraints placed at partial length
(l).

cl
le; =l
le; =Lb

0.2
13.6
5.51
0.57
0.41

0.3
8.22
5.16
0.61
0.38

0.4
5.37
4.82
0.65
0.36

0.5
3.58
4.49
0.70
0.35

0.6
2.36
4.17
0.75
0.34

0.7
1.48
3.88
0.81
0.34

0.8
0.85
3.61
0.87
0.34

0.9
0.37
3.36
0.93
0.33

1.0
0.0

1.00
0.33

a
This value represented lateral restraints at a distance which was very close to the
twisting supports but not equal to zero.

Setting the determinant of the stiffness matrix to zero gives an exact

solution for the normalized relationship between bracing stiffness and
corresponding critical load values as in the following equation:
3

kl =EI cl coscl  cot0:5cl sincl=cl  sincl cot0:5cl:

12
Similarly, for the asymmetric mode shape, applying boundary


conditions wx10 EIwx10 0; wx1l ; w0x1l for sidespan beam, i.e. beamcolumn AB, and

wx20 ; w0x20

EIwx20:5l

0 for the internal-span beam, i.e. beam

; wx20:5l
column BC, Eq. (13) gives a normalized solution between the bracing
stiffness and the corresponding critical load. For a given lateral stiffness
value, critical load is the minimum value obtained from symmetric and
asymmetric calculations using Eqs. (12)(13).
3

13

For practical uses, the method should be expanded for different

stiffness values of lateral bracings. Bracings were represented as linearly
elastic translational springs at symmetric locations with respect to the
mid-span of the beams, which is mostly the cases in practice (see
Fig. 8). Depending on the magnitude of the lateral bracing stiffness,
compression anges of beams can deform in either symmetric or asymmetric shape with respect to the center-span (see Fig. 8).
For the symmetric deformation shape, applying boundary conditions


wx10 EIwx10 0; wx1l ; w0x1l for the side-span beam,


i.e. beam AB, and wx20 ; w0x20 ; w0x20:5l EIwx20:5l 0 for
the internal-span beam, i.e. beam BC, Eq. (6) gives:
c3 l  cosclc2
c3  coscl k=EI
c2  sincl
c2 l  sinclc  cot0:5cl

0.1
28.2
5.88
0.53
0.45

kl =EI cl 0:5  sincl 0:5cl=  sincl 0:5  sin0:5cl

2.4. Beams with elastic lateral restraints

0.0a

2
0.50
0.50

11
where 1= sinclcl  coscl.

Fig. 7. Bending restraint of side-spans with shorter length to buckling length of centralspan, obtained from Eqs. (8)(10).

where 1= sin0:5cl0:5cl  cos0:5cl.

A typical design curve for the relationship between lateral bracings
stiffness and buckling length of the central-span for different locations
of lateral bracings is shown in Fig. 9, as the results of linear FE buckling
analyses. Comparison between the FE results and the results of Eq. (12)
are made in Fig. 10; where the solid lines represented the FE results (for
kLb =N0 values between 0.0 and 200.0), and the dashed lines represented the results of Eq. (12), (for kLb =N0 values between 0.0 and 800.0);
and N0 2 EI=L2b . The results obtained from Eq. (12) were expanded
for more values of stiffness than the FE data to show the excellent
agreement between the two methods. The results showed that the relatively small values of stiffness for symmetrically placed lateral bracings, can signicantly decrease the buckling length of the compression
ange, especially for the cases where 0:25 (see Fig. 9). For the case
of 1:0; the points indicated with (i) and (ii) in Fig. 9 represented
minimum bracing stiffness values (kLb =N0 being 13.2 and 81, respectively) to change the buckling shapes from a single half-sine wave to

Fig. 8. Compression ange of beams with symmetrically placed lateral elastic bracings.

H. Mehri et al. / Structures 3 (2015) 236243

241

1:0, can be calculated by means of Winter's rigid bars model that

are hinged at the locations of braces.
Critical load values of the beam shown in Fig. 8 was normalized to
critical load values when ignoring bending restraint of the side
spansthe buckling length is conservatively assumed to be equal to
2

Fig. 9. Relationship between buckling length of the compression member shown in Fig. 8
and stiffness of lateral bracings.

the distance between the bracing points, i.e. l =le;k in Fig. 10. The results
shown in Fig. 10 veried that this assumption gives unsafe results for
relatively small values of brace stiffness for all locations of bracing. On
the other hand, providing relatively soft bracings, e.g. as little as
kLb =N0 100 , signicantly enhanced the critical load values. This
capacity is currently ignored in practice when the buckling length is
assumed to be equal to l [3].
Fig. 11 graphs the results obtained from Eqs. (12)(13) for different brace stiffness values and brace locations of the compression
ange shown in Fig. 8. Comparisons between the two curves showed
that shifting from a symmetric to asymmetric buckling mode shape
will not occur for small values of (e.g. values between 0.0 and
0.6) for any stiffness values of the lateral bracings prior to buckling
of the internal-span. Fig. 12 shows the results of Eqs. (12)(13) for
0:7 in which the FE results were also included. Obviously, the
2

minimum values for the critical load ratios (i.e. l =le;k ) of the internalspan obtained from Eqs. (12)(13) were in excellent agreement with
the FE results.
Fig. 13 also depicts required bracing stiffness values for the cases
if slightly larger buckling length than the corresponding to equivalent to immovable supports, le; , was desired in design. As it can be
concluded in Fig. 13, to approach fairly close to the largest possible
critical load of compression ange, a relatively large bracing stiffness
was required for the cases with small values of which might not be
economical for particular cases in practice. For this reason, Fig. 13 enables design engineers to examine the use of lower stiffness values to
achieve slightly lower load carrying capacity than corresponding to
full bracing.
Fig. 10. The curves showing ratios between critical loads of compression member shown
in Fig. 8 and critical load of the same member assuming the buckling length to be equal to
the distance between the bracing points.

3. Conclusions

two and three half-sine waves, respectively, where three half-sine wave
corresponds to the ideal bracing stiffness of the column [15]. These
thresholds values for columns with equally spaced lateral bracings i.e.,

Advanced commercial software packages are widely relied on to

model complex structures considering nonlinearities, imperfections,
etc. in bridge design practice. The results of such numerical analyses
should be checked by other approaches. Simplied models can greatly

Fig. 11. Investigations on shifting from a symmetric buckling mode shape, obtained from Eq. (12), to an asymmetric buckling mode shape, obtained from Eq. (13), for the compression
anges shown in Fig. 8.

242

H. Mehri et al. / Structures 3 (2015) 236243

Acknowledgments
The nancial support from The Lars Erik Lundbergs
Stipendiestiftelse (Dnr 7/2013 and Dnr 2014/05) to this study is
gratefully acknowledged.

Appendix A. Solved example.

Determine critical moment, M cr , for the beams shown in Fig. 14. The
length of beams is 60.0 m between the twisting supports for both crosssections (S1: doubly-symmetric, and S2: mono-symmetric). The value
of varies between 0.0 (unbraced beam), 0.1, 0.25, and 1.0 (equally
spaced lateral bracings); and stiffness of lateral bracings kLb =N0 varies
between 25, 100, and (immovable lateral support).
Fig. 12. Comparisons between the results of Eqs. (12)(13) and FE analyses for 0:7.

help design engineers to either preliminary size the bridge girders and
their bracings, or check the FE results. A model was discussed in this
paper which can be used to calculate critical moment values of laterally
restrained beams at the level of their compression anges for given
values of bracing stiffness. The model related buckling length of compression ange of steel girders to their lateral torsional critical moment.
For this purpose, exact analytical solutions were derived to consider the
effects of bending restraints on critical load values, created due to unequal spanning of bracings. This effect has been neglected in practice
when the buckling length of compression members is assumed to be
equal to the largest distance between the bracing points. The presented
paper showed that this assumption can give unsafe results for small
bracing stiffness values and can also lead to signicant overdesign problem even when relatively soft bracings are used.
Typical design curves were also given as the results of analytical solutions for unequally spanned lateral bracings which give required lateral bracing stiffness to achieve the largest possible critical load
values. One solved example examined the applicability of the approach
for 26 cases of mono-symmetric and doubly-symmetric beams, with
different lateral bracing stiffness values and at different locations. The
results obtained using the model compared very favorably with those
from FE analyses. Besides, the time to perform the analyses using the approach was comparatively short. In addition, the model demonstrated
high potential to help in developing and understanding the theory of
beam and column bracings.

Fig. 14. Bridge girders and their cross-sectional properties for the solved example.

Solution:



N0 2 2  105 50  6003 =12 =600002  106 0:49 MN
i) For laterally braced cases with kLb =N0 25:

le;k =Lb
Fig. 6

N cr MN 
Eq. (4)

N. B.a
0.1
0.25
0.5
1.0

1.00
0.79
0.57
0.43
0.42

0.49
0.80
1.53
2.63
2.87

LT , Eq. (5)

M cr , Eq. (3)
MNm

FEA (%)

S1

S2

S1

S2

S1

S2

1.95
1.66
1.38
1.24
1.22

2.11
1.77
1.45
1.28
1.26

2.41
3.31
5.30
8.13
8.73

2.60
3.53
5.57
8.44
9.04

+0.8
+4.2
+4.0
+1.7
+2.5

1.1
+3.1
+1.6
0.2
+1.4

a
N.B.: No lateral bracing.
refers to a two-half-sine wave shape lateral torsional bucking mode of beam, as observed in FEA.

ii) For laterally braced cases with kLb =N0 100:

0.1
0.25
0.5
1.0
Fig. 13. Lateral bracing stiffness requirements versus bracing location, when less than full


bracing le le; is desired in design.

le;k =Lb
Fig. 6

N cr MN 
Eq. (4)

0.59
0.43
0.36
0.33

1.41
2.67
3.85
4.45

LT
Eq. (5)

M cr , Eq. (3)
MNm

FEA (%)

S1

S2

S1

S2

S1

S2

1.41
1.23
1.17
1.15

1.48
1.28
1.20
1.18

4.98
8.23
11.23
12.75

5.24
8.53
11.56
13.07

+5.4
+2.9
+2.8
+3.8

+0.6
+0.2
+0.6
+1.4

refers to a three-half-sine wave shape of lateral torsional buckling mode of beam, as

observed in FEA.

H. Mehri et al. / Structures 3 (2015) 236243

iii) For laterally braced beam cases with kLb =N0 :

le; =Lb
Eqs. (7)&(12)

Ncr MN
Eq. (4)

0.1
0.25
0.5
1.0

0.44
0.39
0.35
0.33

2.55
3.24
4.03
4.53

LT
Eq. (5)

M cr , Eq. (3)
MNm

FEA (%)

S1

S2

S1

S2

S1

S2

1.24
1.19
1.16
1.14

1.29
1.23
1.9
1.17

7.92
9.69
11.68
12.95

8.23
10.01
12.00
13.28

+5.1
+4.4
+0.6**
+5.4**

+2.6
+1.3
0.1**
+2.9**

* and ** refer to 2nd and 3rd (i.e. two and three half-sine wave shapes, respectively) modes
of lateral torsional buckling of beam, as observed in FEA.

It is evident that there are only slight discrepancies between the

results obtained from the proposed approach and the results from FE
analyses, whereas FEA demands signicantly more time than the proposed approach (which can be done using e.g. an Excel sheet for all
the calculations).
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