Research On The Performance Of Steel Channels As Stiffeners In Bolted End-plate Beam-to-column Connections

The research on the connections' performance arouses people's attention until the late 1970s.The mechanical performance of the beam-to-column connections is very important to the overall structure in the design of the steel frame. In order to avoid the local buckling of the column web, we can lay stiffeners on the column web for end-plate beam-to-column connections.A channel stiffener for end-plate beam-to-column connections is introduced to meet some architectural needs in this study. This plan uses channels as stiffeners instead of the traditional stiffening way. Two simplified models of a beam-to-column connection without stiffeners and a beam-to-column connection stiffened with channels are analyzed by finite element simulation considering of materials nonlinear, geometric nonlinear and contact nonlinear. The effect of channels as stiffeners to connections' performance can be investigated by comparing and analyzing the finite element calculation results. Main factors which affect behavior of the beam-to-column connections with channel stiffeners are researched in the FEM analysis parametrically. This study showed the use of channel stiffeners in the beam-to-column connections reduces the deformation of the connections, ameliorates the connections' performance and significantly improves the connections' strength and stiffness, the thickness and yield strength of channel stiffeners and boundary conditions affect the connections' performance significant.