CHARACTERISTICS OF OPTIMAL SOLUTIONS FOR PLANE BRACED STEEL FRAMES WITH RESPECT TO CHANGE OF SPAN PLANNING

Abstract

In our previous paper, we have proposed a method for estimating the optimal solutions of unbraced 2D steel frames based on the result of a comparative study. In this paper we apply the same approach to braced 2D steel frames. In the comparative study, the characteristics of optimal solutions of 2D frames with some fixed patterns of brace locations are studied by changing the number of spans and the span lengths. Based on the results of this study, we propose a parametric model to estimate the optimal solutions of braced 2D frames with a variety of span planning. The validity of proposed method is shown through a numerical example of 5 story buildings.