ABSTRACT
Liebenberg has introduced the concept of the space interaction of plates in order to analyse free-standing staircases. Torsional moments and their stresses, being negligible, are taken as secondary stresses in order to evaluate primary stresses. P.L. Gould and E.J. Taleb have produced simplified analyses by neglecting the bending moments along the line of intersection of the landing and the flights. A.R. Cusens and J.G. Kuang have assumed that the staircase behaviour can be simulated by the skeletal rigid frame. A plate-bending finite element analysis was adopted for steps. Next ‘Scissors’ type staircases were analysed. Since isoparametric finite element analyses are not involved directly in producing bending moments, it was necessary initially to adopt the plate-bending finite element analysis. Bending stresses and shear stresses were produced for various positions of loadings. Using the same mesh size, a two dimensional isoparametric finite element was carried out assuming the same boundary conditions.
