FR 
This article presents the benefits of the Integral General Method for justifying the design of specific architectural columns featuring curved profiles and/or non‑standard cross‑sections, with the sole requirement that the mechanical problem admits a plane of symmetry, allowing the analysis to be reduced to a 2D system in combined bending with second‑order effects.
The worked example demonstrates the calculation of stresses and deformations, as well as the verification of deformation compatibility at every section, and compliance with Eurocode 2 criteria for such a column.
[Article to be published soon]
- Nicolas DUBREIL
- 1 min
This article addresses a common situation in infrastructure slabs that are sensitive to shrinkage and thermal strain effects.
The proposed calculation method incorporates shrinkage directly into the concrete constitutive laws and evaluates the resulting shortening, lengthening and bending effects, depending on the slab’s continuity conditions, restraints, self‑stress mechanisms and cracking behaviour.
A sensitivity study is also performed, showing how the structural response varies depending on the orientation of the beams with respect to the long dimension of the slab, and highlighting several good‑practice considerations that may be of interest for design.
[Article to be published soon]
- Nicolas DUBREIL
- 1 min
The Eurocode 2 General Method reduced to the analysis of a critical section (MG1) relies on a strong assumption regarding the shape of the deformed configuration, which is often taken as sinusoidal. This sinusoidal form derives from the case of an elastic column subjected to a negligible first‑order effect, just sufficient to bring the column out of its unstable equilibrium state (y(x)=0) and generate an instability that leads to an increasing deformation until a stable equilibrium is reached.
In a case such as a pinned‑pinned column subjected to progressive axial loading and bending moments at different locations along its height, the sinusoidal model becomes very unrealistic. Using the General Method allows an exact global‑stability verification at ULS without any assumption on the shape of the deformation, and an SLS calculation of total and serviceability‑critical deformation, while satisfying all Eurocode 2 requirements.
This article also proposes an extrapolation of Eurocode 3 to define acceptable horizontal‑displacement criteria for this type of slender structure.
[Article to be published soon]
- Nicolas DUBREIL
- 2 mins
Eurocode 2 provides practical design and calculation methods applicable on the one hand to continuous and simply‑bent members such as beams and slabs, and on the other hand to axially‑compressed members supported at two ends, such as columns and walls. The points of attention differ and are specific to each case.
The case of an infrastructure slab acting as a strut lies at the intersection of these two canonical types of structural members: it is both slender and axially compressed with a significant first‑order moment, and at the same time continuous, sensitive to crack width and to deformation.
The Integral General Method can provide an appropriate framework for addressing these intermediate configurations and verifying all applicable Eurocode 2 criteria. This article presents the design of such a structure.
[Article to be published soon]
- Nicolas DUBREIL
- 1 min
