Secondary Stresses

They're not as strong as primary stresses.

AN ANALYSIS OF SECONDARY STRESSES IN STEEL PARALLEL

I appreciate your reply; however, I am seeking for the reason why they are self-limiting. What makes them to control the stress limit?

Regards,

I think that it is not true to say that they are self limiting, some may be but others are not. They may be limited by the success of the primary stress resisting systems

Context is important.

so, you mean that because the design is based on the primary stresses, and primary stresses are naturally more than secondary ones, they are automatically limited. Did I get it right or there is still some thing I have missed?

Regards

In some cases, yes but not always, sometimes there is a tipping point to failure although I, personally, elevate those to be primary because of their importance. Sometimes it is secondary effects, not stresses. When we designed braced frame structures in pre-computer days, we ignored the continuity of the columns and designed everything as pinned. Vertical load should go into the bracing, but if it was designed only for lateral force load cases, it would yield if sufficiently over stressed in the combined case to make a one-time adjustment.

The bottom line is that in the pre-computer days, most structures were designed for only primary stresses with the secondary and tertiary load paths as redundant strength and so they failed less often than structures designed in the post-computer area where secondary and tertiary load paths are used.