Adopting flexibility of the end-plate connections in steel moment frames

The majority of connections in moment resisting frames are considered as being fully-rigid. Consequently, the real behavior of the connection, which has some level of flexibility, is ignored. This may result in inaccurate predictions of structural response. This study investigates the influence of flexibility of the extended end-plate connections in the steel moment frames. This is done at two levels. First, the actual micro-behavior of extended end-plate moment connections is explored with respect to joint flexibility. Then, the macro-behavior of frames with end-plate moment connections is investigated using modal, nonlinear static pushover and incremental dynamic analyses. In all models, the P-Delta effects along with material and geometrical nonlinearities were included in the analyses. Results revealed considerable differences between the behavior of the structural frame with connections modeled as fully-rigid versus those when flexibility was incorporated, specifically difference occurred in the natural periods, strength, and maximum inter-story drift angle.