Can someone please answer this question for me because I am currently at a loss. I am looking at a situation where two columns support a cantilevered floor. I have two columns with "cantilevers" coming off of them at the floor level. At the end of the cantilevers I have a diagonal brace which attaches back to the top of these columns respectively. And at the end there are two posts up and simple "lateral" roof beams. So I just have a simple cantilevered cube with two diagonal braces to take the end of the cantilever in tension.
In Steel beam these two floor beams are failing miserably. I have seen that Steel beam considers everything pinned but this is clearly not true. It is calculating the moments as though one end is fixed and the other free. Based on the loads in the "View Loads" button I can duplicate these moments. When I go into Frame, the moments are reduced by about 40% and there is an axial load in the floor beams (as would be expected). But the brace has 0 load in it so I know that the brace is being calculated incorrectly. So I cannot understand why there is a discrepancy between Steel Beam and Frame. I cannot duplicate the loading on these beams from the Post Processing Frame Loads Report, however I can duplicate the loading on one of the infill beams that frames between the two. ANY help would be greatly appreciated.
Ah-ha, tension-only braces were used initially. In Ram Frame analysis, tension-only braces are always ignored in the gravity load case analysis. We do this to prevent the pair of braces in an X braced frame from both going into compression and therefore getting thrown out of the stiffness matrix. I think it's also common practice to not consider such braces for gravity analysis. In cases where the braces are necessary to resist the gravity loads, they must be tension and compression members.
More on our tension only member wiki.
Thanks for your help. Just to sum up one final thought.
So any beams and columns that are lateral may not have correct designs when just ran in the Steel Beam/ Steel Column modules correct? If a lateral beam/column fails in the respective modules, but works in Frame that Frame is the one to be trusted. The idea being that while beam and column are a quick easy way to design most columns, the Frame module in fact takes into consideration ALL effects.
Answer Verified By: Seth Guthrie