Trends in steel structures concerning materials, codes and applications

This paper gives an overview of recent trends in steel structuresconcerning materials, codes and applications. There is a trendtowards using higher strength steel grades, and this asks for adifferent approach to the design of steel structures. Also workis underway for the next version of part 1-1 of Eurocode 3:EN 1993-1-1 [1]. Many design rules need improvement and theso-called ‘systematic review’ yielded topics that need to be considered.Amendments for EN 1993-1-1 were accepted already bythe committee responsible for Eurocode 3, i. e. CEN/TC250/SC3,led very effectively by Prof. Ulrike Kuhlmann. The paper gives animpression of some of these amendments. The scope of thedesignrules will be extended, amongst others by including highstrengthsteel grades. Apart from trends in materials and codes,also trends can be observed regarding the applications of steelstructures. Of course these trends in materials, codes and applicationsmutually influence each other