Energy dissipative beam-column connection for earthquake resistant moment frames

This study presents the details of experimental investigations on a novel energy dissipative beam-column connection. This work is in line with the current research focused on developing resilient structures by confining inelastic actions or damage within easily replaceable select number of elements in a structure at predetermined locations. Towards this, a novel connection consisting of two fuse links and a standard shear tab is developed such that the beam, column, shear tab and connecting bolts remain elastic, while sufficient energy dissipation is provided by the fuse links alone. The experimental programme entails component level tests on fuse plates and full-scale exterior beam-column joint sub-assemblage studies by using the novel connection to demonstrate its performance and to prove its efficacy. For this purpose, monotonic and standard pseudo-static reversed cyclic loading protocol is used. It is observed that the connection exhibits good energy dissipation characteristics by confining the damage within the fuse links keeping the primary structural members in elastic state. The same column and beam sections are used for all the experiments as no damage is observed, except bolt thread marks in beam. Also, a damaged connection could be easily dismantled within about 10–15 min and replaced with a new one.