RESEARCH ARTICLE


Experimental Study and Finite Element Analysis of Hysteretic Behavior of End-plate Connection Semi-Rigid Space Steel Frames



Wang Tao*, 1, 2, Wang Zhan1, 2, Wang Junqi1, 2
1 State Key Laboratory of Subtropical Building Science, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510640, China
2 School of Civil Engineering and Transportation, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510640, China


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Creative Commons License
© 2013 Tao et al;

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

* Address correspondence to this author at the State Key Laboratory of Subtropical Architecture Science, Department of Civil Engineering and Transportation, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510640, China; Tel: (+86)15813393663; Fax: (+86)020-87113421; E-mail: wangtao195046@126.com


Abstract

To investigate the seismic behavior of end-plate connection semi-rigid space steel frames, three 1/4-scale specimens were tested under cyclic load. Finite element analysis which took initial geometric imperfections into consideration was also conducted, and the results conform to experimental results. The failure modes, hysteretic behavior, deformation capacity and energy-dissipation capacity of the end-plate connection semi-rigid space steel frame have been explicated in this paper. The investigation in this paper indicates that: (1) the end-plate connection semi-rigid space steel frames exhibit full hysteretic loops under horizontal cyclic load and have good ductility as well, indicating that this kind of frames can satisfy the deformation demand in strong earthquakes. (2) Plastic hinges formed at beam ends, and the stress and deformation amplitudes of joint-panels were smaller than those of column base and beam ends. It shows that this kind of frames satisfy the design principle “strong column weak beam, strong joint weak component”.

Keywords: Semi-rigid space steel frames, end-plate connection, hysteretic behavior experiment, FEM analysis, ductility.