The continuous strength method

Many of the principal concepts that underpin current metallic structural design codes were developed on the basis of bilinear (elastic, perfectly-plastic) material behaviour; such material behaviour lends itself to the concept of section classification. The continuous strength method represents an alternative treatment to cross-section classification, which is based on a continuous relationship between slenderness and (inelastic) local buckling and a rational exploitation of strain hardening. The development and application of the continuous strength method to structural steel design is described herein. Materials that exhibit a high degree of nonlinearity and strain hardening, such as aluminium, stainless steel and some high-strength steels, fit less appropriately into the framework of cross-section classification, and generally benefit to a greater extent from the continuous strength method. The method provides better agreement with test results in comparison to existing design codes, and offers increases in member resistance and a reduction in scatter of the prediction. An additional benefit of the proposed approach is that cross-section deformation capacity is explicitly determined in the calculations, thus enabling a more sophisticated and informed assessment of ductility supply and demand. Further developments to the method are under way.