Study on hysteretic behavior of beam-column cover plate connection

Cover plate (CP) reinforced steel moment resistant frame (MRF) connection is one of the details with potential plastic hinge moved outward from the beam and column interface. In order to study hysteretic behavior of beam-to-column cover plate connections, based on consideration of material, geometric and contact nonlinearity, finite element analysis for beam-to-column cover plate connections under cyclic loading is carried out. Three dimensional solid element is adopted in the connection models. The effects of joint panel thickness, beam height, cover plate length and axial compression ratio on hysteretic behavior of connections are studied. Finite element results reveal that major connections exhibit good ductile behavior; displacement of beam end exceeded 80 mm. With increasing joint panel thickness, strength and stiffness of CP connections are higher. The ductility of CP connections worsens with possible failure pattern of strong beam and weak column, when the beam height becomes higher. Cover plate length slightly affected the behavior of CP connections. It is also found that when axial compression ratio of the column increases, strength, stiffness and ductility of CP connections significantly decreased.