Mechanics based force-deformation curve of steel beam to column moment joints

The widespread damage to steel Moment Resisting Frames (MRFs) in past major earthquakes have underscored the need to understand the nonlinear inelastic behaviour of such systems. To assess the seismic performance of steel MRF, it is essential to model the nonlinear force-deformation behaviour of beam to column joints. To determine the extent of inelasticity in a beam to column joint, nonlinear finite element analysis is generally carried out, which is computationally involved and demanding. In order to obviate the need of such elaborate analyses, a simplistic method to predict the force-deformation behaviour is required. In this study, a simple, mechanics driven, hand calculation method is proposed to obtain the force-deformation behaviour of strong axis beam to column moment joints. The force-deformation behaviour for twenty-five interior and exterior beam to column joints, having column to beam strength ratios ranging from 1.2 to 10.99 and 2.4 to 22, respectively, have been obtained. The force-deformation behaviour predicted using the proposed method is compared with the results of finite element analyses. The results show that the proposed method predicts the force-deformation behaviour fairly accurately, with much lesser computational effort. Further the proposed method has been used to conduct Nonlinear Dynamic Time History Analyses of two benchmark frames; close correspondence of results obtained with published results establishes the usefulness and computational accuracy of the method.