Since the early 1960s, coupled instabilities — also called compound buckling, simultaneous buckling or interactive buckling — have been a topic that was studied by many researchers. However, despite some excellent theoretical works in this field, the relevant subject is not yet satisfactorily considered in modern design codes for metal structures. To fill up this gap and to improve the current situation, a series of International Conferences 'Coupled Instabilities in Metal Structures' was launched in 1992 with the main aim of encouraging an exchange of views between researchers and engineers on the various aspects of coupled instabilities. The success of the first conference, held at Timisoara (Romania) in 1992, and organized by Professors D Dubina & V Gioncu (Politechnica University of Timisoara) and J Rondal (Univ. of Liège), has encouraged the organization of a second conference, to be held in Liège (Belgium) during September 5-7, 1996. A third conference is still forecast for the year 2000.

The aim of the book is to fill up the gaps between theoretical, numerical, and practical design approaches in the field of coupled instabilities of metal structures. The book is organized in a way leading progressively from the mathematical basic theories to the design aspects through numerical and semi-empirical approaches of the interactive buckling of metal structures. Optimum design account taken of coupled instabilities and code aspects are also briefly covered.

The subject of coupled instabilities is a fascinating field of research with a wide range of practical applications, particularly in the analysis and design of metal structures. Despite the excellent body of existing results concerning coupled instability structural behaviour, this situation has not yet been adequately translated into design rules or specifications. In fact, only to a small extent do modern design codes for metal structures take advantage of the significant progress made in the field. This book, which contains all the invited general reports and selected papers presented at the Third International Conference on "Coupled Instabilities in Metal Structures". (CIMS '2000), should provide a meaningful contribution towards filling the gap between research and practice.

The aim of this book is to review recent research and technical advances, including the progress in design codes, related to the engineering applications of light gauge metal sections made in carbon, high strength and stainless steel, as well as aluminium alloys. Included is a review of the new technologies for connections of light gauge metal members. Main advanced applications, for residential, non residential and industrial buildings and pallet rack systems are also covered. For the first time, this book takes into account all the metallic materials now used more and more for structural components. The book will be of great interest not only for researchers but also for design engineers faced to the use of new metallic materials in modern structural applications.

This book is a state-of-the-art report on the ductility of steel structures, containing a comprehensive review of the technical literature available, and presenting the results of the authors' own extensive research activities in this area. Analytical and numerical methods are described, and a wealth of practical information is provided. Ductility of Seismic-Resistant Steel Structures will be of great use to advanced students, researchers, designers and professionals in the field of civil, structural and earthquake engineering.

The book is concerned with design of cold-formed steel structures in building based on the Eurocode 3 package, particularly on EN 1993-1-3. It contains the essentials of theoretical background and design rules for cold-formed steel sections and sheeting, members and connections for building applications. Elaborated examples and design applications - more than 200 pages - are included in the respective chapters in order to provide a better understanding to the reader.

With the gradual development of rules for designing against instability the idea emerged, in London, in 1974 to hold an International Colloquium treating every aspect of structural instability of steel structures. There have been 17 International Colloquia Stability Sessions around the world, starting with the first one in Paris in 1972, until with the last one in Nagoya in 1997. In Nagoya it was decided to continue the series of travelling colloquia by launching the Sixth Colloquium in September 1999 with the First Session to be held at the "Politehnica" University of Timişoara, România, which will be followed by another in the year 2000 at the Gediminas Technical University in Vilnius, Lithuania, a third one during SSRC's Year 2000 Annual Meeting in the US, and a fourth one in Australia or New Zealand. At present important research projects are in progress around the world, like SAC Joint Venture Project in USA, INCO-COPERNICUS "RECOS" in Europe and others, which are devoted to improve and develop new methods for the safety design of steel structures in seismic zones. Special attention is paid in Europe, USA and Japan to improve the design codes and detailing of seismic resistant steel structures. This was the reason to organise the Session of Nagoya as "Stability and Ductility of Steel Structures" Colloquium. Romania is also a strong seismic territory and therefore, the topic of the Timişoara Session covered both stability and ductility problems. The technical programme of the SDSS'99 Colloquium in Timişoara has been split into nine working sessions.

ICSAS '99 - The Fourth International Conference on Steel and Aluminium Structures was a sequel to ICSAS '87 held in Cardiff, UK, to ICSAS '91 held in Singapore and to ICSAS '95 held in Istanbul, Turkey. The objective of the conference was to provide a forum for the discussion of recent findings and developments in the design and construction of various types of steel and aluminium structures.The conference was concerned with the analysis, modelling and design of light-weight or slender structures in which the primary material is structural steel, stainless or aluminium. The structural analysis papers presented at the conference cover both static and dynamic behaviour, instability behaviour and long-term behaviour under hygrothermal effects. The results of the latest research and development of some new structural products were also presented at the conference. A total of 76 papers and 30 posters were presented at the conference by participants from 36 countries in all 6 continents.

Thin-plated structures are used extensively in building construction, automobile, aircraft, shipbuilding and other industries because of a number of favourable factors such as high strength-weight ratio, development of new materials and processes and the availability of efficient analytical methods. This class of structure is made by joining thin plates together at their edges and they rely for their rigidity and strength upon the tremendous stiffness and load-carrying capacity of the flat plates from which they are made. Many of the problems encountered in these structures arise because of the effects of local buckling. The knowledge of various facets of this phenomenon has increased dramatically since the 1960s. Problem areas which were hitherto either too complex for rigorous analysis or whose subtleties were not fully realized have in these years been subjected to intensive study. Great advances have been made in the areas of inelastic buckling. The growth in use of lightweight strong materials, such as fibre-reinforced plastics has also been a contributory factor towards the need for advances in the knowledge of the far post-buckling range. The conference is a sequel to the international conference organised by the University of Strathclyde in December 1996 and this international gathering will provide the opportunity for discussion of recent developments and trends in design of thin-walled structures.

The catastrophic earthquakes of the last decades (Mexico City, 1985; Loma Prieta, 1989; Northridge, 1994; Kobe, 1995) have seriously undermined there putation of steel structures, which in the past represented the most suitable solution for seismic resistant structures. Even if in very few cases, the performance of steel joints and members was unexpectedly bad, showing that it was due to some lacks in the current design concept. As a consequence of the lessons learned from the above dramatic events, many progress has been recently achieved in the conception, design and construction, by introducing the new deals of the performance based design, including the differentiation of earthquaketypes and considering all factor influencing the steel structure behaviour under strong ground motions. In this scenario, the aim of the book is to transfer the most recent achievements into practical rules for a safe design of seismic resistant steel structures. The seven Chapters cover the basic principles and design criteria for seismic resistant steel structures, which are applied to the main structural typologies, like moment resistant frames, braced frames and composite structures with particular reference to connections and details.