Work Package 3
WP 3 investigates the behavior of closely spaced built-up members made of angles in order to improve and simplify the design rules given in EN 1993-1-1 ยง6.4.4. For back-to-back angles, the requirement for the spacing between batten plates is 15 imin (where imin is the minimum section radius of inertia of one single angle) while the usual practice in Europe was 40 imin or 50 imin. If this requirement is not fulfilled, the code imposes more complicated calculations by taking into account the influence of the shear deformation on the buckling resistance. These rules are considered as too severe by the practitioners and lead to more onerous solutions. One goal of this work package is to investigate the possibility of increasing the spacing limit of 15 imin. If the results show that the limit cannot be increased sufficiently, a simplified design methodology will be proposed instead.
