Foreword

DESIGNS executed in accordance with the working stress provisions of the AISC Specifi-
cation (elastic designs) measure their factor of safety in terms of the yield point strength of
the steel-more precisely its guaranteed minimum yield strength. Since the state of stress is
not uniform for all types of structural members, or for all parts of a single member, simplifying
assumptions are made as a basis for computing working stress. Of necessity, therefore, the actual
margin of safety provided for overloading and other contingencies can be measured with no
greater certainty than the accuracy of the simplifying assumptions.
If the elastic behavior of structural steel persisted up to the point of rupture, i.e., if struc-
tural steel were a brittle material, many of these time-tested assumptions would have proven
unsafe. Design analyses would have had to be more complex, and even then a higher factor of
safety would have been necessary.
Fortunately, when stressed to its yield point, structural steel becomes ductile in a manner
which makes it unique among structural materials. It is because of this characteristic that the
assumptions which are the basis for Construction Types 2 and 3, as set forth in Section 1 of
the AISC Specification, can be justified. Were it not for ductility, the working stress for rivets
would have to be progressively reduced as the number of rows of rivets normal to the line of
stress, in a single connection, increased above two.
Fixed ratios of calculated stress to yield point stress-in short, recommended working
stresses-afford a reasonable index to the actual strength of isolated structural members and
their connections. They cannot logically be used to predict the actual strength of beams con-
tinuous over several supports or indeterminate structures whose connections are rigid, or nearly
so. An attempt in this direction was included in the 1946 revision of the AISC Specification,
when the working stress in bending at interior points of support, due to gravity loading on
continuous structures, was raised 20 percent. However, the results obtained on this basis may
still be only approximately correct and do not reflect the true capacity of continuous steel
frames to resist horizontal loads in conjunction with gravity loading.
To provide a uniform margin of safety, continuous steel structures must be designed on the
basis of their ultimate or plastic strength. Methods presented in the following pages make such
designs feasible. Not only do they result in a more logical engineering answer; the solution is
less time-consuming than one based upon elastic analysis.
The recommendations contained in this Manual, with respect to plastic design, have been
fully corroborated in twleve years of research jointly sponsored by the American Institute of
Steel Construction at Lehigh University. The evidence will be presented in considerable
detail in a future report entitled COMMENTARY ON PLASTIC DESIGN IN STEEL. They
have been further strengthened by independent investigations carried on both in this country
and abroad.
These studies are continuing. As more of the potential field of application is explored it may
be expected that methods of plastic design will be extended to embrace other types of struc-
tures and other conditions of loading than those included in the presently recommended scope.
Construction based on somewhat similar rules has been extensive in Great Britain since 1954.