Lateral-torsional buckling steel beams with simultaneously tapered flanges and web

A procedure for critical buckling moment of a tapered beam is proposed with the application of potential energy calculations using Ritz method. Respective solution allows to obtain critical moments initiating lateral buckling of the simply supported, modestly tapered steel I-beams. In particular, lateral-torsional buckling of beams with simultaneously tapered flanges and the web are considered. Detailed, numerical, parametric analyses are carried out. Typical engineering, uniformly distributed design loads are considered for three cases of the load, applied to the top flange, shear centre, as well as to the bottom flange. In addition simply supported beam under gradient moments is investigated. The parametric analysis of simultaneously tapered beam flanges and the web, demonstrates that tapering of flanges influences much more the critical moments than tapering of the web.