1. General

This publication presents design data in tabular formats as assistance to engineers who are designing buildings in accordance with BS EN 1993-1-1:2005 [1], BS EN 1993-1-5:2006 [1] and BS EN 1993-1-8:2005 [1] and their respective National Annexes. Where these Parts do not give all the necessary expressions for the evaluation of data, reference is made to other published sources.

The symbols used are generally the same as those in these standards or the referred product standards. Where a symbol does not appear in the standards an alternative symbol has been chosen following the designation convention as closely as possible.

1.1. Material, section dimensions and tolerances

The structural sections referred to in this design guide are of weldable structural steels conforming to the relevant European and British Standards given in the table below:

Table - Structural steel products

Product Technical delivery requirements Dimensions Tolerances
Non alloy steels Fine grain steels
European sections including
IPE, HE, HL and HD sections		 BS EN 10025-2 [2] BS EN 10025-3 [2] BS EN 10025-4 [2] See note 1 BS EN 10034 [4]
Universal beams,
Universal columns, and
Universal bearing piles		 BS 4-1[3] BS EN 10034
Parallel Flange Channels BS 4-1 BS EN 10279 [6]
European channels with
parallel flanges(UPE)		 See note 1 BS EN 10279
Angles BS EN 10056-1 [7] BS EN 10056-2 [7]

Notes:

  1. For the European section ranges given see www.constructalia.com.
    For full details of the British Standards, see the list of References.

Note that EN 1993 refers to the product standards by their CEN designation, e.g. EN 10025-2. The CEN standards are published in the UK by BSI with their prefix to the designation, e.g. BS EN 10025-2.

1.2. Dimensional units

The dimensions of sections are given in millimetres (mm).

1.3. Property units

Generally, the centimetre (cm) is used for the calculated properties but for surface areas and for the warping constant (IW), the metre (m) and the decimetre (dm) respectively are used.

Note: 1 dm = 0.1 m = 100 mm
  1 dm6 = 1 x 10-6 m6 = 1 x 1012 mm6

1.4. Mass and force units

The units used are the kilogram (kg), the Newton (N) and the metre per second squared (m/s2) so that 1 N = 1 kg x 1 m/s2. For convenience, a standard value of the acceleration due to gravity has been generally accepted as 9.80665 m/s2. Thus, the force exerted by 1 kg under the action of gravity is 9.80665 N and the force exerted by 1 tonne (1000 kg) is 9.80665 kilonewtons (kN).

1.5. Axis convention

The axis system used in BS EN 1993 is:

x along the member
y major axis, or axis perpendicular to web
z minor axis, or axis parallel to web

This system is convenient for structural analysis using computer programs. However, it is different from the axis system previously used in UK standards such as BS 5950.