PAST WEBINAR

Presentation Outline: 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 Webinar included:

• 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 

Webinar Materials

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

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.