The term effective length is mostly used as a synonym for the buckling length or the lateral-torsional buckling length.
The "effective length" can generally be regarded as a length based on the member length but deviating from it due to specific boundary conditions. In the Dlubal Software environment, it is mostly used as a generic term or synonym for the buckling length or the lateral-torsional buckling length. Therefore, you can see this term in the program generations RFEM 5 and RSTAB 8, especially in the member design modules performing stability analyses.
In the program generations RFEM 6 and RSTAB 9, you can define the effective lengths in the New Effective Lengths dialog box.
