The Earthquake Engineering Online Archive

Experimental studies of a single story steel structure with fixed, semi-rigid and flexible connections

Nader, Marwan N.; Astaneh-Asl, Abolhassan

UCB/EERC-89/15, Earthquake Engineering Research Center, University of California, Berkeley, 1989-08, 206 pages (515/N15/1989)

Recent experimental results are described of the dynamic behavior of a one-story steel structure tested with fixed, semi-rigid, and flexible connections. The structure was subjected to various intensities of three historical earthquake acceleration time histories by means of the shaking table at the Earthquake Engineering Research Center, Univ. of California at Berkeley. The details of the structure are presented together with the instrumentation programs; the data collected in the tests is described. The dynamic properties of the structure, moment-rotation, shear-rotation, and several other response parameters of the three different connections are presented. The global responses of the structure, ranging from elastic to inelastic, with three different connections under three types of excitations are examined. Local responses of the structure such as force and deformation time histories, hysteresis diagrams, and tabulated extreme values are shown. Important observations are made on the test results in each test. The behavior of flexible and semi-rigid structures under dynamic loading is studied, and their respective responses are compared to that of the fixed structure subjected to similar earthquakes. The use of flexible and semi-rigid structures in low-to-moderate earthquakes is investigated and commented on.

Available online: http://nisee.berkeley.edu/documents/EERC/EERC-89-15.pdf (11 MB)