Moment-rotation characteristics of I-beam to box-column connection stiffened externally

Abstract

The traditional way of stiffening the I-beam to box-column connections is to weld an internal diaphragm plate inside the column. This method is, however, complex, time consuming and expensive. An alternative method in which stiffening is provided by means of external stiffeners has been proposed earlier. This paper presents the results in the form of moment-rotation relationships obtained from tests and analysis on full-scale specimens of such connection. The connections were stiffened externally by means of T-sections or angle sections. Variation of moment with rotation for connections stiffened in different ways are compared and the results indicate that the performance of connections stiffened externally with T-sections is better than that of connections stiffened by other forms of stiffeners. Moment-rotation characteristics of these connection obtained from experiments are compared with the corresponding finite element results and good agreement between the two sets of results confirm that the finite element method could sever as an effective tool for predicting accurately the moment-rotation behaviour of this type of connections.