Effects Of Column Splice Properties On Seismic Demands In Steel Moment Frames

Abstract

Dynamic inelastic response history analysis of a 2-D model of a nine storey steel frame were carried out with different column splice strengths and stiffnesses using a suite of 20 MCE level earthquake records. Splices were located every 2nd storey at one third of the storey height up from the column below. It was shown that (i) the presence of even very flexible splices increased the frame period by less than 3%, (ii) flexible splices increased storey drift ratios by up to 27%, (iii) splice stiffnesses of zero to infinity had no effect on frame displacements, (iv) the splice moment demand increased with increasing splice stiffness on the frame and was as high as 99% of the column flexural capacity.