Application of stiffeners in the design and construction of steel column base connections is unavoidable. Design of stiffened base plates is necessary when heavy or eccentric loads should be transferred from column to the foundation.

In this tutorial, assignment of stiffeners to the column base connection is explained.

1. Open the ColumnBase software to view the Start Session (Figure 1) and then click Initialize New Model.

Figure 1, Start Session Form

 

2. In the New Model Initialization form (Figure 2), do these steps:

Figure 2, New Model Initialization Form

 

• Click to Initialize Model from Defaults with Units, and select your desired unit system. SI, MKS, I.R. or U.S Imperial units.
• Select Stiffened Plate.
• Set default material, section, and anchor bolts databases and then click OK.

 

3. In the main window of the software, click Stiffener Tab (According to Figure 3).

Figure 3, Program Main Window

 

4. In the Stiffener tab, select Stiffeners Material. By clicking (+) button, Material Definition form will be shown and new material definition, modification of existing materials or importing new materials can be done.

In the next step, Stiffeners Height could be changed. In this version of the software, height of all stiffeners is equal and can't be different.

For assigning the available typical stiffeners click Assign/Modify Stiffeners Arrangement. 

Figure 4, Stiffener Tab

 

5. In the Assign Typical Stiffeners form (Figure 5), the thickness of the stiffeners could be assigned. As mentioned above for the stiffener height, the thickness of all stiffeners should be equal and definition of stiffeners with different thickness is not performed in the current version.

For any type of column section with the consideration of column position on the base plate, the program suggests the available arrangement of stiffeners. For example in Figure 5, there are six arrangements for the stiffeners.

Select any case and then click OK.

By clicking OK, if any stiffener had been assigned in the past, a message will appear that informs pervious stiffeners will be replaced by new stiffeners (Figure 6).

If the new stiffeners conflict with the defined anchor bolts, below message, will appear. By clicking Delete Illegal Anchors, the illegal anchors will be removed and base plate model will update for the new stiffeners and legal anchor bolts. when anchors conflict with the column or stiffeners or when anchors haven't minimum spacing required to the connection parts, this message will be shown.

 

7. Run the analysis (Press F5).

 

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