Investigation of the behavior of connection of reduced-beam-section steel beam to reinforced concrete column

Abstract

After recent earthquakes that caused major damages in beam-column connections, scientists and engineers proposed new types of connections to postpone such brittle failures. One of these new connections is the connection of steel beam to concrete column and connection of reduced- beam-section to steel column. However, these new connections have some defects. The aim of this paper is to investigate the combination of RCS and RBS connection and assess the behavior of new combined connection. In this type of connection, a beam with reduced section at the end is connected to a concrete column. In such a detail, the main defect of RCS and RBS connection disappears. The connection was modeled using Abaqus finite element package and the effect of cut of the flange, cover-plate thickness and stiffener thickness in the new system were investigated and compared with those in RCS connection. The results show that cut of flange has a great influence on compressive damage and tensile damage. Furthermore, cut of flange decreases the stress in the cover-plate, stiffener and reinforcements. Increasing the thickness of cover-plate, reduces stress in cover-plate. The use of reduced-beam-section instead of ordinary connection improves the connection overall performance.

Keywords

• rcs connection
• rbs connection
• shear depth
• fem analysis
• concrete column
• steel beam