Merchant-Rankine Approach to Member Stability

By using the Merchant-Rankine formula and its logical extensions it is possible for the designer to better appreciate the design process. He is able to exercise his engineering judgment by the choice of buckling coefficients in the elastic equations, and to establish the forms of instability to be considered. All that will be required of the Code Committees is to decide on values of n. Further studies might indicate that n can be related directly to specified imperfections.