ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the behaviour and design of beams which fail by lateral buckling and yielding. When a beam has several rigid supports which prevent local lateral deflection and twist rotation, the beam is divided into a series of segments. The influence of intermediate restraints on beams with central concentrated and uniformly distributed loads has been studied, and many values of the minimum restraint stiffnesses required to cause the beams to buckle as if rigidly braced have been determined. The chapter develops the effective length concept that is essentially a convenient method of expressing the variations of the maximum moment Mob at elastic buckling with the beam geometry, loading and restraints. Perhaps the simplest type of rigid-jointed structure is the continuous beam which can be regarded as a series of segments which are rigidly connected together at points where lateral deflection and twist are prevented.
