H-shaped Beams Research Articles

In the steel structures consisted of tubular column and H-shaped beams, it is important to proportion the details of connections which should have sufficient load carrying capacity and appropriate rigidity for the transverse force to column walls caused by the normal stresses of beam flanges. To predict the local behavior of those connections analytically, however, is quite difficult. The purpose of the present paper is to investigate the local failure of tubular column to H-beam connections stiffened with ring stiffeners experimentally. The local failure means here the failure of connections that is caused by the normal force of beam flanges, which includes the local collapse of tubes and the fracture of ring stiffeners as well as welds therein. The factors affecting the local failure are the diameter-thickness ratio of tubes and the shape and dimension of both stiffeners and beam flanges, in addition to the material properties of them. For an investigation on the effect of each factor affecting the local failure experimentally, it is necessary that a number of various connections have to be tested. So, in this paper simplified models are used as the test specimens. They are simulated practical interior beam to column connections in rigid frames under vertical loads. The work reported in this paper clears the effects of the dimensional parameters on the local strength of the connections qualitatively and will be used for deriving the empirical formulae to predict the strength in the succeeding paper.