The presentation provided an overview of cold-formed steel (CFS) design concepts, and showed how CFS design has many similarities to AISC structural steel design. The webinar highlighted updates made in the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) North American Specification for the Design of Cold-Formed Steel Structural Members, AISI S100-07, as adopted by the 2009 International Building Code (IBC). The review of updates included a discussion of the distortional buckling failure mode: new in the 2007 specification.

Who Attended?

• Structural engineers using or preparing for the 2009 IBC.
• Academicians and researchers
• CFS framing manufacturers
• Code enforcement staff
• Code consultants
• Design professionals
• Forensic engineers
• Software developers
• Evaluation Services

This interactive web-based seminar (webinar) was set up to allow participants to ask questions: using a “chat” based format.  The entire seminar was moderated by a registered P.E., who collected questions from participants and provided structure to the Q & A session at the end.  Questions not answered during the session were answered by e-mail after the webinar.  

Each registration fee for a live Webinar included one computer connection, one set of materials and one evaluation for continuing education credits.  The member and non-member price each included 1.5 CE credits for one participant.  Additional participants in the Webinar registered by a non-member could purchase CE credits for an extra $25 each. There were no fee for additional participants registered by CFSEI and SFA members. Qualified participants were required to submit attendee lists within 48 hours of seminar completion.

Webinar Materials

CFSEI Technical Notes on Software & Distortional Buckling
Attendance sheet
Evaluation form

Importance of attandance

• More structures are using CFS framing in structural and loadbearing applications.
• To qualify for 1.5 hours of state of Florida continuing education credits (FBPE Course number # 0004191)
• Members could sign up other participants to obtain continuing education at no additional cost.

About the Presenter:

Dr. Roger A. LaBoube is Distinguished Teaching Professor of Civil Engineering and Director, Wei-Wen Yu Center for Cold-Formed Steel Structures at the Missouri University of Science & Technology (formerlyUniversity of Missouri-Rolla).  Dr. LaBoube holds B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from the University of Missouri-Rolla.  Dr.LaBoube has an extensive background in the design and behavior of cold-formed steel structures.  His research and design activities have touched on many facets of cold-formed steel construction to include: cold-formed steel beams, panels, trusses, headers, wall studs as well as bolt, weld, and screw connections.  Dr. LaBoube is active in professional organizations and societies, including a member of the Committee on Specifications for the North American Specification for the Design of Cold-Formed Steel Structural Members and a member of the AISI Committee on Framing Standards.  He is a Registered Professional Engineer in Missouri.

The Direct Strength Method (DSM) is an entirely new design method for cold-formed steel. DSM requires no effective width calculations, eliminates tedious iterations to determine section properties, properly includes interaction effects between elements of the cross-section such as the flange and the web, and opens up the potential to create new sections as it is applicable to nearly any shape that can be formed from cold-formed steel (as opposed to just C, Z and hat shapes.) First adopted in 2004 as Appendix 1 to the North American Specification for the Design of Cold-Formed Steel Structural Members, the most recent version can be found in the recently published AISI-S100-07. This CFSEI seminar introduces designers to DSM, provides step-by-step design examples, and informs users of design resources such as CFSEI Technical Note G100-09 and AISI Design Guide on DSM (CF06-1P.)

This interactive web-based seminar (webinar) was set up to allow participants to ask questions: using a “chat” based format. The entire seminar was moderated by a registered P.E., who collected questions from participants and provided structure to the Q & A session at the end. Questions that were not answered during the session were received and responded afterward.

PDHs

Course registered for 1.5 PDH,  FBPE Course number # 0004328.
Continuing education certificates were available in electronic format to all registered participants.

Seminar Materials

Registered participants received a link to download the following:

• Presenter’s notes
• CFSEI Technical Note on
  DSM
• Free software CUFSM
• CUFSM tutorials & examples
• Attendance sheet
• Evaluation form

Importance of Attendance

• Worked through step-by-step design examples using DSM.
• Learned how DSM principles apply to steel framing and metal building systems
• Learned to use CUFSM (free open-source software) for finding elastic buckling loads
• Understood finite strip results and how to apply these to DSM design
• Saw how a company can use DSM to optimize shapes for specific loading applications before manufacturing tooling

Presenter

Dr. Ben Schafer currently serves as the Swirnow Family Scholar, Associate Professor and Chairman of the Department of Civil Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. He received his B.S. in Civil Engineering from the University of Iowa and his M.S. and Ph.D. in Structural Engineering from Cornell University. Dr. Schafer has worked as a practicing structural engineer at Simpson, Gumpertz & Heger, Inc. in Boston Mass. and is licensed as a Professional Engineer. Professor Schafer serves on numerous technical committees related to cold-formed steel structures and is a past-president of the Cold-Formed Steel Engineers Institute. He has received the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, ASCE Collingwood Prize, and is the primary author of the AISI Direct Strength Method Design Guide and the CFSEI Direct Strength Method Technical Note.