doi:10.3850/978-981-07-7136-2_293
Current Developments for International Steel Design Codes
Professor Reidar Bjorhovde
President, The Bjorhovde Group, Tucson, Arizona 85750. USA
Email: rbj@bjorhovde.com
Biography
Reidar Bjorhovde is President of The Bjorhovde Group, a consulting firm located in Tucson, Arizona, USA. With doctoral degrees from the Norwegian Institute of Technology and Lehigh University, Dr. Bjorhovde has held positions with the Norwegian Institute of Technology and AISC. He was a professor at the University of Alberta, the University of Arizona and the University of Pittsburgh for many years. He is Editor of the Journal of Constructional Steel Research and Research Editor of the AISC Engineering Journal.
Dr. Bjorhovde advises industry, designers, fabricators and owners on construction projects throughout the world, and works with industry, government associations and research councils on engineering projects as well as research and code needs. He has conducted extensive research and design code development, including landmark work on limit states design, the stability and reliability of steel columns, structural steel connections, steel materials and composite structures.
The author of a number of books and more than 300 archival publications, he has received many awards, including the T. R. Higgins Award of AISC, the Research Fellowship of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, the NATO Senior Scientist Award, the Croes Medal, the Hardesty Award and the George Winter Award of ASCE, the Duggan Medal of the Engineering Institute of Canada, the IMCA Award of the Mexican Institute of Steel Construction, the Lynn S. Beedle Award of the Structural Stability Research Council and the AISC Lifetime Achievement Award. The Singapore Structural Steel Society has named him an Honorary Fellow. In 2012 the European Convention for Constructional Steelwork (ECCS) presented him with the Charles Massonnet Award. Tsinghua University in Beijing, China, recently named him a Tsinghua Chair Professor.
Dr. Bjorhovde is a member of the AISC Specification committee and until recently was also a member of the AISI Specification committee for cold-formed steel structures. He is a member of the committee for the Canadian steel design standard CSA S16, and served on the committee that developed the 2005 and 2011 Hong Kong steel design code. He is a past chairman of the Structural Stability Research Council. Dr. Bjorhovde is a Fellow of ASCE, a Fellow of the ASCE Structural Engineering Institute and a Registered Professional Engineer in the United States, Canada and Norway.
Abstract
The use of codes is a key feature of structural design for any construction material. Specifically, the codes ensure that all relevant safety and performance requirements are met. Materials, structural systems and methods of analysis tend to vary from one international locale to another, although computers and other tools of designers are now essentially the same all over the world. However, since the form and contents of specific code requirements are different, at least on the surface, it is critical to understand the design philosophies as well as the practical approaches that are favored within each code jurisdiction. The formulations often have well-established historical and societal backgrounds, with certain geographical and other preferences. The paper offers an assessment of some major international design standards, with an in-depth emphasis on the codes of the United States and the European Union. It is shown that all major design codes provide state-of-the-art criteria, for all practical purposes. The real differences are rarely large, and basically evolve from the approaches that are used to ensure reliability and structural performance. Serviceability is addressed in many different and often cursory ways, and is usually heavily based on long-time engineering and construction preferences and methods. Economy of design is never a codification issue, since such concepts continue to be at the discretion of the design team. The paper concludes with a review of current design codes around the world and the status of adoption in different countries and regions.
