Steel Designers Manual - TheBestFriend.org

This material is copyright - all rights reserved. Reproduced under licence from The Steel Construction Institute on 12/2/2007
To buy a hardcopy version of this document call 01344 872775 or go to http://shop.steelbiz.org/
Steel Designers' Manual - 6th Edition (2003)
60 Multi-storey buildings
2.3.2 Beams
Structural steel floor systems consist of prefabricated standard components, and
columns should be laid out on a repetitive grid which establishes a standard structural
bay. For most multi-storey buildings, functional requirements will determine
the column grid which will dictate spans where the limiting criterion will be stiffness
rather than strength (Fig. 2.15).
Steel components are uni-directional and consequently orthogonal structural
column and beam grids have been found to be the most efficient. The most efficient
floor plan is rectangular, not square, in which main, or ‘primary’, beams span the
shorter distance between columns and closely-spaced ‘secondary’ floor beams span
the longer distance between main beams. The spacing of the floor beams is controlled
by the spanning capability of the concrete floor construction (Fig. 2.16).
Fig. 2.15 Typical floor layout