The design charts are in turn used in a system for the automated design of residential roof truss system. The focus is on three aspects. The first deals with the use of steel sections as the primary load bearing members. Guidelines are established for the design of these members. This will lead to the generation of design criteria for the members and connections.
Mechanical tests evaluate the performance of the individual members, fasteners, and connectors.
Three different loading conditions of compression, flexure, and tension are used. The experimentally observed performance of the chord members are compared to the values from the AISI code as well as from finite element analysis. Here is the typical failure pattern of a long column. The failure is governed by what we refer to as the classical Euler column buckling. That is the entire cross section works in unison.