Effects of Modeling Details and Strength Variation on Seismic Performance Evaluation of Steel Beam-to-column Connections

Abstract

The primary objective of this study is to investigate the effects of modeling details and strength difference on the seismic performance evaluation for steel moment connections In detail the techniques of finite element analysis (FEA) were first applied to develop a model for a SN490B steel bolted-web-and-welded-flange (BWWF) connection The model was then simplified to 6 different extents ANSYS software was used to simulate the seismic response of the connection models All the models predicted the fracture of the base metal near the flange-groove weld but the potential of rupture decreased as the model simplified The models were also used to study a fully-welded connection and predicted the potential of fracture to be much lower than the compatible BWWF connection The effects of strength difference were further evaluated for the beam web and flanges The result shows that if the web plate had greater strength ignoring the strength variation would underestimate the potential of fracture That also implies that if web plates had relatively lower strength the potential of fracture would reduce especially for BWWF connections

Date of Award	2020
Original language	English
Supervisor	Chi-ming Lai (Supervisor)