Rib Reinforcing of Flange Plate Moment Resisting Connection

Extensive damages in steel structures connections after 1994 Northridge earthquake, clearly showed main deficiencies of methods of designing and fabricating steel moment frames. Brittle fractures in steel structures welded connections revealed that damages in moment frames were associated with connection performance and that all these brittle fractures occurred in beam-column connection point. Present study analyzes rib restrained beam to box column connection. In this connection design, a strengthening plate is used to reinforce the connection, which connects to the column by full penetration weld and has a definite geometry. The rib plate is designed in such a way that induces the plastic hinge away from the column. Results show their effectiveness on transferring beam's plastic hinge away from column and improvement in ductility.