General Method supported by Consteel

Have you ever heard about the 'General Method'? This is an alternative design method to consider the interaction of axial compression with major-axis bending for general buckling situations, where the main interaction formulas are not applicable.

This basically includes every member with monosymmetric or asymmetric cross-sections or with cross-sections not uniform along the length (welded tapered sections) or laterally stabilized by sheeting or anything else without providing full fork supports.

Did you know, that the General Method is fully supported by Consteel and provides an automated buckling verification possibility? Of course, for the use of the General Method in a general case the traditional 12DOF beam finite elements are not applicable. But the special 14DOF beam elements used by Consteel are perfectly compatible? 

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