Sway buckling of unbraced multistorey frames

The sway-buckling analysis of plane, rigid-jointed, unbraced, single-bay but multistorey frames is presented. The loading (distributed) and the structural geometry are both symmetric with respect to a vertical midplane. The frames are supported by immovable supports with rotational restraint of specified stiffness. In addition to obtaining critical conditions, several parametric studies are performed, primarily for a two-storey frame. In these studies, the effect of the following design parameters is considered:

• 1.(a) rotational restraint of the supports
• 2.(b) bending stiffness of the horizontal beams
• 3.(c) length of the horizontal beams
• 4.(d) bending stiffness of second storey columns. More-over, the effect of dividing the load in different proportions between the two stories on the critical condition (total critical load) is also investigated.