Beam design for steel storage racks

The paper deals with the design of beams used in industrial storage systems. Refined parametric analyses have been carried out by means of an open source FE software package able to simulate the behavior of non-symmetric cross-section members. With reference to lipped channel and zed beams, the contribution of warping effects has been investigated with regard to not only the in-service displacements and rotations, but also focusing on its influence in the distribution of stresses at the ultimate limit state. Furthermore, in order to investigate the differences associated with the use of 6DOF and 7DOF FE beam formulations, Appendix A proposes two design examples, which are also reproduced in Appendix B by hand calculations.