STEEL CONNECTION DESIGNS BASED ON INELASTIC FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSES (GUSSET, BRACING, STRUCTURES).

Abstract

Analytical and experimental studies were made to develop design procedures for steel gusset plate connections in diagonally braced frames. Stiffness and strength models of structural fasteners based on physical tests were incorporated into inelastic finite element analyses. The modeling techniques were verified by comparing analytical and experimental results of full scale connection tests. Finite element models of bracing connections were generated to determine gusset plate force, stress, strain, and displacement distributions for a variety of connection designs including K-bracing and X-bracing. Based on these results current design procedures were scrutinized and new design procedures were proposed for predicting the tensile strength, buckling strength, and force distributions for bracing connections. Additionally, it was found that gusseted beam-to-column connections are rigid (AISC Type I) and the centroidal axes of the brace, beam, and column members do not necessarily need to intersect at a common working point.