ABSTRACT
This section addresses the influence of tension on the lateral-torsional stability behavior of simply supported, doubly-symmetric I-section beams subjected to major-axis bending My and tension Nt . As a first step, an analytical expression for the critical (constant) bending moment Mcr including the influence of Nt has been developed, and validated through Abaqus beam finite element analyses (BFEA). Next, a numerical investigation, again carried out by means of Abaqus BFEA and aimed at assessing the effect of tension on the critical moment of beams acted by several nonuniform bending diagrams, is presented and discussed. Among all the reported conclusions, the numerical investigation showed that the critical moment increase always grows (i) with the amount of tension acting on the beam and (ii) as the beam becomes more prone to lateral-torsional instability.
