Sharif Digital Repository

In this thesis, the shearing behaviour of a semi-rigid connection is studied experimentally. Due to high shear rigidity of existing connections, even those which demonstrate semi-rigid behaviour under bending, their shear characteristics have not been studied yet. Regarding the concerned semi-rigid connection, it was necessary to examine its behaviour under shear, experimentally. Altogether, five series of specimens were tested under shear loading. Tests on two of these series, due to fabrication deficiencies, twice had to be halted before reaching the final stage—each time the specimens were sent to the fabricator to fix the improper welds. The results of these tests clearly show the high... 

Recent studies show that the most efficient connections are those which have more flexibility and energy dissipation capacity in addition to their strength and stiffness. While their flexibility reduce the earthquake-induced forces, their energy dissipation capacity, by dissipating some of the energy at connections, can reduce the share of structural members of the total energy that has to be dissipated, hence increasing their chance to remain intact and undamaged during an earthquake. Since conventional connections, even semi-rigid ones, have great shear rigidity, there is not any article in the literature about shear behavior of beam-to-column connections. However, due the fact that the... 

The behaviour of a semi-rigid connection with appreciable shear deformation capacity was studied experimentally. The tests carried out on the specimens of this connection composed of ‘monotonic’ and ‘cyclic’ tests. The monotonic tests results showed the high shear deformation capacity of this connection as well as its high energy dissipation capacity. The cyclic tests, however, indicated the ability of this connection to endure large number of ‘well-rounded’ hysteresis cycles, which led to the dissipation of great amount of energy before failure  

This thesis presents the development of a Finite Element Model (FEM) for a new type of Beam-Column Semi-Rigid steel connection. This connection consists of a steel semi cylinder connected to a plate and inserted on the top and bottom of the beam connecting it to the column by welding. It seems that changing the geometry of the semi cylinders and their weld lengths can have a great influence on the rigidity or flexibility of the connection. Therefore, meaningful categories of the connection with different semi cylinder geometries and weld lengths have been modeled and investigated by means of a Finite Element Modeling software ABAQUS, and their moment-rotation curves were driven. Also the... 

Beam to column connections affect on the performance of the steel frames. Connections are assumed pin, semi rigid or rigid based on rigidity. Previously most steel structures designed as pin or rigid connections but lately many studies have been done on structures with semi rigid connections and these studies show that semi rigid connections have excellent properties that makes this connection a superior response such as less base shear, more economic, ability to absorb more energy and etc. In this study semi rigid connection with torsional plate has been studied. In addition to previous characteristics, this connection has special properties such as simple implementation, Dimension... 

The flexibility of beam to column connections and its effect on behavior of steel structures is one of the most important problems, which is interesting to engineers and scientists for more than 80 years. Hence many studies conducted on this topic to clarify the behavior of this type of connection. In this work, it is tried to study the behavior of double plate connections, which are welded to the beam web by finite element modeling and mathematical method. A novelty of this thesis is some top trough plate which has been implemented to column under beam flange. Based on finding of this thesis few recommendation can be made related to usage of top trough plate. In brief reduction of... 

To investigate the accurate performance of a structure, the knowledge of the way its connections function, is of great importance. Moreover, cognition of the actual behavior of connections which is often semi-rigid can lead to better apprehension of the actual and more accurate behavior of structures, whilst it is often considered to be pinned or fully-rigid.Therefore, in this study a new semi-rigid steel connection of beam to column will be introduced, and its behavior will be investigated using commercial finite element packages along with mathematical approximate modeling methods. One of the features of this connection is that its behavior mainly depends uponfolding of top and bottom... 

Abstract- Due to vulnerability of metallic structures to fire, to have an advance estimate of the behaviour and performance of the structure during fire, can greatly assist the designers to make preparations and take precautionary measures to prevent excessive damage to the building. The study of the behaviour of a structure at high temperatures can be divided into two parts, that of its members, and that of its joints. The survey of the literature reveals that most of the previous work concentrated on the former, and it seems that there has not been much work on the latter. The objective of this project was to study the behaviour of structural joints at elevated temperatures, in general,... 

Steel is a non-combustible material, but at high temperatures, steel structures, due to their diminishing yield strength, undergo a considerable visco-plastic deflection, which results in a reduction in their load bearing capacity. Thus, to increase safety against fire must be considered as an important objective in the design and construction of steel structures. One of the safety measures which can be taken against fire is to increase the resistance of the structure against heat by using heat-resistant coatings. This decreases the rate of transfer of heat to the structure, and must include the ‘structural members’ and ‘structural joints’. Due to the role of structural connections in... 

In this thesis, the semi-hinged connections such as double-angle connections, which are welded to the beam web and bolted to the column flange, are investigated. In this study it's tried to establish the effect of clearance setback between beam end and column flange and/or web. When the beam rotates, it is desirable to avoid the bottom flange of the beam bearing against the column as this can induce large forces in the connection. The usual way of achieving this is to ensure that the connection extends at least a few millimeters beyond the end of the beam. For this purpose, several connections are designed and considered, based on two different shear capacities for the beam. For each... 

Fire is one the events which threatens the very existence of every building, residential, office, industrial or else. However, this threat is more serious with regard to buildings with steel structures. Steel, despite its many advantages over other structural materials, such as having high strength to weight ratio, ductility, toughness and resilience, has the disadvantage of rapidly losing its strength at elevated temperatures, i.e. in fire. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the designer to make the serious decision of whether to use steel, concrete, timber, or other materials for the structure of the building to be designed. Observations made during full-scale fire tests as well as... 

This thesis presents the investigation and development of a Finite Element Model (FEM) for a new type of Beam-Column Semi-Rigid steel connection. One of the main parts of this connection is a steel T profile inserted on top of a beam connecting it to a column by bolts. It seems that changes in the geometry of the T profile and its bolt positions can have a great influence on the rigidity or flexibility of the connection. Therefore, meaningful categories of the T profile geometry with different bolt positions have been modeled and analyzed by means of a Finite Element Modeling software ABAQUS, and their moment-rotation curves were driven. Also the Initial and Nonlinear Stiffness and the... 

Past earthquakes show that irregular structures have been more vulnerable than their regular counterparts. One of the common types of irregular buildings in urban areas is split-level ones. On the other hand, beam-to-column connections in steel structures are mostly of "semi-rigid" type. In this work, effects of different levels of rigidity of connections, 100%, 75%, 50% and 25%, on the behavior of a number of two-dimensional split-level steel structures, with 1.5 m difference in levels of floors, 2, 3, 5 and 6 bays, and 5, 10 and 15 stories, were studied. All frames were analyzed “with” and “without” considering the P-∆ phenomenon, with two methods, ‘equivalent static load,’ and ‘modal... 

Fire is one of the permanent threats due to earthquakes, however in spite of the attention drawn towards design and retrofitting of structures in recent years in our country, no effective steps have been taken for examining design methods and control of the structures’ reactions in case of a fire. One of the reasons for this, is lack of observations and data and also lack of a standard for design of structures that are resistant to fire. Since the connections of beams and columns play an important role in performance of the structures, in this research the behavior of a structure having a semi-rigid connection to an end plate has been investigated by performing an experiment on a scaled... 

Steel structures are one of the most common structures in the world. One of the main parts of these structures is the connections, which are divided into three main categories of fixed, semi-rigid and joints, according to
the different criteria provided in the guidelines and codes. Perhaps the main challenge facing civil engineers has been designing efficient connections against lateral loads (seismic loads, wind loads). This issue has received more and more attention from designers due to the poor performance of the fasteners against lateral loads. Investigating and evaluating semi-rigid connections as one of the main part of steel structures against various loads, especially lateral... 

In this thesis project the effect of joint rigidity on the behavior of steel braced frames has been investigated. In order to carry out this study on the efficiency of semi-rigid connections, a series of 3-bay braced frames ranging from 6- to 20-story with extended end-plate and flush end-plate connections have been selected and designed. This study has been extended by evaluating the role of the mentioned connections on seismic performance of selected semi-rigid frames under seven famous earthquake records. Having taken a particular performance level, in this case, “life safety” the target displacement and also the lateral load pattern for each frame have been calculated. Then using a...