Payam Ashtari - Associate Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Zanjan, Zanjan, Iran
Ramin Naseri - Ph.D. Student, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Zanjan, Zanjan, Iran

Seismic behavior of beam-to-column connections can be improved by shifting the location of inelasticity away from the column s face. Some connections can be achieved by reducing the flange area at a specific distance from the beam-column connection, called reduced beam section (RBS), or by reducing web area by perforating the web, called reduced web section. In this paper, an innovative RBS connection named Tubular Flange Section (TFS) connection is introduced and assessed numerically using ABAQUS finite element software. TFS connection is composed by replacing a part of beam web and flange with a tube at the expected location of the beam plastic hinge. Obtained results indicated that TFS connection exhibits stable hysteresis behavior. Besides, due to presence of the tube, TFS can effectively concentrate the plastic strains within the reduced region and result in substantial reduction in the developed strain demands near the critical complete joint penetration (CJP) welds. Furthermore, strength degradation is not occur up to 4% story drift ratio. Therefore, the TFS connection can successfully satisfy requirements of current design codes.

Tubular Flange Section, Cyclic loading, Steel moment resistant frame, Hysteretic, Finite element analysis