• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.453-467
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• 2019

Portal frame structures, made up of cold-formed steel trusses, are increasingly being used for lightweight building construction. A novel pin-jointed moment connector, called the Howick Rivet Connector (HRC), was developed and tested previously in T-joints and truss assemblage to determine its reliable strength, stiffness and moment resisting capacity. This paper presents an experimental study on the HRC, in moment resisting cold-formed steel trusses. The connection method is devised where intersecting truss members are confined by a gusset connected by HRCs to create a rigid moment connection. In total, three large scale experiments were conducted to determine the elastic capacity and cyclic behaviour of the gusseted truss moment connection comprising HRC connectors. Theoretical failure loads were also calculated and compared against the experimental failure loads. Results show that the HRCs work effectively at carrying high shear loads between the members of the truss, enabling rigid behaviour to be developed and giving elastic behaviour without tilting up to a defined yield point. An extended gusset connection has been proposed to maximize the moment carrying capacity in a truss knee connection using the HRCs, in which they are aligned around the perimeter of the gusset to maximize the moment capacity and to increase the stability of the truss knee joint.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.91-100
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• 2004

This study presents the development of a new aluminum seat frame for the commercial bus. Back moment and seat belt anchorage analysis of the conventional steel seat frame was conducted as a base model. Effective aluminum section dimensions for aluminum pipe were calculated from equivalent stiffness and equivalent weight study. Back moment and seat belt anchorage strength with the developed aluminum seat frame were compared to those of the base model. Additionally, to pass the fatigue test, shape modification of side frame assembly was conducted. From this study we could reduce the weight of seat frame more than 5 kg. And the current analysis model and procedure can provide useful informations in designing a new commercial car seat and can reduce the overall design cost and time.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.671-682
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• 2007

The probability and the reliability-based seismic performance evaluation procedure proposed in the FEMA-355F was applied to a reinforced concrete moment frame building in this study. For the FEMA procedure, which was originally developed for steel moment frame structures, to be applied to other structural systems, the capacity should be re-defined and the factors reflecting the uncertainties related to capacity and demand need to be determined. To perform the evaluation procedure a prototype building was designed per IBC 2003, and inelastic dynamic analyses were conducted applying site-specific ground motions to determine the parameters for performance evaluation. According to the analysis results, distribution of the determined capacities turned out to be relatively smaller than that of the demands, which showed that the defined capacity was reasonable. It was also shown that the prototype building satisfied the target performance since the determined confidence levels exceeded the objectives for both local and global collapses.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.727-734
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• 2017

This paper describes a quasi-static finite element analysis, which uses the explicit integration method, of the apex joint of a cold-formed steel portal frame. Such cold-formed steel joints are semi-rigid as a result of bolt-hole elongation. Furthermore, the channel-sections that are being connected have a reduced moment capacity as a result of a bimoment. In the finite element model described, the bolt-holes and bolt shanks are all physically modelled, with contact defined between them. The force-displacement curves obtained from the quasi-static analysis are shown to be similar to those of the experimental test results, both in terms of stiffness as well as failure load. It is demonstrated that quasi-static finite element analysis can be used to predict the behavior of cold-formed steel portal frame joints and overcome convergence issues experienced in static finite element analysis.

• International journal of steel structures
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.1431-1439
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• 2018

For floating buildings may fl oat on the water for a long time, they are constantly affected by various environmental loads such as wind and wave loads. In this study to find the wave effect on the floating building, five models are designed using steel moment resisting frame. It is assumed that the lower part of the floating building is a reinforced concrete pontoon, while the upper part is a three-story steel frame. To analyze floating buildings affected by wind and wave loads, hydro-dynamic and substructure analysis are performed. As input loads, this study set limits that the mean wind velocity is 35 m/s and the significant wave height is 0.5 m for the residential building. From the hydrodynamic analysis, the time-history acceleration of building is obtained and transformed into a base ground input for a substructure analysis of the superstructure of the building. Finally the mean of the maximum from 30 dynamic analysis of the floating buildings are used to be compared with the results of the same model on the ground. It was shown that the dynamic results with wind and wave loads are not always lesser than the static results which are calculated with static equivalent wind load for a building that is located on the ground.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.507-518
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• 2013

The seismic performance of six types of weak-axis steel moment connections was investigated through cyclic testing of six full-scale specimens. These weak-axis moment connections were the column-tree type, WUF-B type, FF-W type, WFP type, BFP-B type and DST type weak-axis connections. The testing results showed that each of these weak-axis connection types achieved excellent seismic performance, except the WFP and the WUF-B types. The WFP and WUF-B connections displayed poor seismic performance because a fracture appeared prematurely at the weld joint due to stress concentrations. The column-tree type connection showed the best seismic behavior such that the story drift ratio could reach 5%.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.271-294
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• 2014

In recent years, along with the advances made in performance-based design optimization, the need for fast calculation of response parameters in dynamic analysis procedures has become an important issue. The main problem in this field is the extremely high computational demand of time-history analyses which may convert the solution algorithm to illogical ones. Two simplifying strategies have shown to be very effective in tackling this problem; first, simplified nonlinear modeling investigating minimum level of structural modeling sophistication, second, wavelet analysis of earthquake records decreasing the number of acceleration points involved in time-history loading. In this paper, we try to develop an efficient framework, using both strategies, to solve the performance-based multi-objective optimal design problem considering the initial cost and the seismic damage cost of steel moment-frame structures. The non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II) is employed as the optimization algorithm to search the Pareto optimal solutions. The constraints of the optimization problem are considered in accordance with Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) recommended design specifications. The results from numerical application of the proposed framework demonstrate the capabilities of the framework in solving the present multi-objective optimization problem.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.68 no.5
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• pp.621-632
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• 2018

Soft-story buildings have bottom stories much less rigid than the top stories and are susceptible to earthquake damage. Therefore, the seismic design specifications need strict design considerations in such cases. In this paper, a four-story building was investigated as a case study and the effects of X-braces elimination in its lower stories studied. In addition, the possibility of replacement of the X-braces in soft-stories with equivalent moment resisting frame inspected in two different phases. In first phase, the stiffness of X-braces and equivalent moment-resisting frames evaluated using classic equations. In final phase, diagonals removed from the lowest story to develop a soft-story and replaced with moment resisting frames. Then, the seismic stiffness variation of moment-resisting frame evaluated using nonlinear static and dynamic analyses. The results show that substitution of braced frames with an equivalent moment-resisting frame of the same stiffness increases story drift and reduces energy absorption capacity. However, it is enough to consider the needs of building codes, even using equivalent moment resisting frame instead of X-Braces, to avoid soft-story stiffness irregularity in seismic design of buildings. Besides, soft-story development in the second story may be more critical under strong ground excitations, because of interaction of adjacent stories.

• International journal of steel structures
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.1772-1783
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• 2018

Nowadays, the researches about composite structure system are being implemented in various fields, and many steel structures are designed based on that. In this study, the bending and seismic performance of the newly developed high-performance cold forming composite beam are evaluated by several experiments. As a result of the bending performance test, the bending moment of beam was increased stably depending on the depth and plate thickness of beam, and it is considered that the bending moment can be evaluated by the equation of a composite beam design. As a result of the seismic performance test, it was verified that sufficient seismic performance was obtained despite the increase of a negative moment rebar and depth of beam. In addition, the nominal bending moment has obtained the strength above the plastic bending moment, and also the plastic rotation angle has satisfied the requirement of composite intermediate moment frame.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.44 no.2
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• pp.283-294
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• 2022

In this study, a new seismic retrofit scheme of building structures is developed by combining a steel moment frame and steel slit plates to be installed inside of an existing reinforced concrete frame. This device has the energy dissipation capability of slit dampers with slight loss of stiffness compared to the conventional steel frame reinforcement method. In order to investigate the seismic performance of the retrofit system, it was installed inside of a reinforced concrete frame and tested under cyclic loading. Finite element analysis was carried out for validation of the test results, and it was observed that the analysis and the test results match well. An analytical model was developed to apply the retrofit system to a commercial software to be used for seismic retrofit design of an example structure. The effectiveness of the retrofit scheme was investigated through nonlinear time-history response analysis (NLTHA). The cyclic loading test showed that the steel frame with slit dampers provides significant increase in strength and ductility to the bare structure. According to the analysis results of a case study building, the proposed system turned out to be effective in decreasing the seismic response of the model structure below the given target limit state.