Steel Stair Tower – From Mounting Details to Stability Analysis

A student project of a steel stair tower in RFEM, including a detailed design of the stair stringers, handrails, and nonlinear supports, with design according to Eurocodes.

Author	Patrik Andel
University	CTU \| Faculty of Civil Engineering, Czech Republic

The “Staircase Tower” model was designed by Patrik Andel from the Department of Steel and Timber Structures at the Czech Technical University in Prague. The project is part of the Dlubal Talent competition.

Structural Design and Modeling

The steel stair tower structure consists of stair stringers and a top landing, which are designed as separate welded components with fixed connections. The ends of the stringers are supported as hinges about global directions. The handrail is included in the model to account for load transfer and its effect on the stiffness of the structure, while the handrail posts are pinned only about an axis perpendicular to the plane of the handrail. The model accounts for selected eccentricities and includes manually defined design supports for both the ultimate limit state (ULS) and the serviceability limit state (SLS) design checks.

3D model of a staircase tower, created by Patrik Andel in RFEM.

Staircase Tower by Patrik Andel

Loads, Nonlinearity, and Design

The top two supports are modeled with nonlinearity to take into account the possibility of the structure lifting without anchoring. Loads and load combinations were generated automatically using built-in generators. The design was performed using the add-ons for stability analysis and the design of steel structures, while the railing was designed separately by manual calculation.

Student project included in the Dlubal Talent CTU 2026 competition

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