A brief review is provided of certain steel bridge stability issues including historical context, level of understanding among practitioners, limitations in coding practice, and the need for and measures taken to improve knowledge. A programme is described to research code of practice (particularly BS 5400) core provisions for the strength of steel I-beams restrained by U-frames. This includes review of the limited previous research, outline of methodologies and objectives, and the content and results of 'reliability based' research comprising ABAQUS analyses of U-frame structures representing the practical range of bridges. The use of ABAQUS is validated and calibrated by experimental tests on fabricated steel models. The effects of uniform and varying bending moment are included, and the results compared with BS 5400 provisions.

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