Abstract:
The purpose of this research is to study and develop an optimum design procedure for plane steel trusses using the Virtual Work Method. The method includes the effects of bend buckling for compression members. A suitable cross-sectional area of each member in a truss under given loads and displacement will be automatically selected. By the Virtual Work Method the member sensitivity index (SI) which is the index showing the importance of the member contributed to the total displacement can be located. The more cross-sectional area of the members having higher (SI) are added the less in total displacement will be gotten in affective way. In theory, a truss having same SI value for all members will be an optimum truss. For a determinate truss, an optimum value is obtained after the first cycle of adjusting the area. For an indeterminate truss, on the other hand, the trial and error steps are used until the solution is converged to the optimum value. The truss thus obtained is then rechecked according to the specifications from three design codes,i.e., The standard for steel structure by Engineering Institute of Thailand (EIT, 1975). The Allowable Stress Design by American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC/ASD 1989) and The Load and Resistance Factor Design by American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC/LRFD 1994) It has been found this research that the Virtual Work Method is an effective method in designing optimum plane steel trusses. The design trusses will safely resist the loads with the member slenderness ratio and the maximum displacement not larger than the values allowed by the standard codes for design.