Dive Brief:

• A new guide to assessing the stability of steel-building designs emphasizes one of three methods offered in 2005 specifications from the American Institute of Steel Construction.
• The publication, AISC Steel Design Guide No. 28, Stability Design of Steel Buildings, discusses all three methods but introduces practicing professionals to the direct analysis method.
• Lawrence Griffis, P.E., senior principal and president of the Structures Division at Walter P Moore in Austin, Texas, and Georgia Tech engineering professor Donald White use examples from design situations that engineers are likely to encounter and avoid theoretical derivations of the standard.

Dive Insight:

The head of AISC's specifications committee said this guide was needed. Engineers were confused by the introduction of the direct analysis method, Shankar Nair said. Having a more transparent method for designing steel structures lost some of its benefit when it was hard to use.