Experimental Research on Seismic Behavior of Non-Rigid Steel Beam-Column Connections with Concrete Cover

Four steel beam-column connections were tested under cyclic loads to investigate effects of the concrete cover and the cast-in-situ slabs on the failure modes, stiffness, load-carrying capacity, ductility and energy-dissipation capacity. The test results show that the stiffness and bending strength of the non-rigid steel connections are significantly increased due to the presence of concrete cover and the cast-in-situ slabs can further enhance the connections. Moreover, the connection with slab is prone to debonding failure along beam-slab interface resulting in a remarkable decrease of the stiffness and strength. Practical methods are also presented for analyzing and assessing the steel frames with non-rigid connections considering effects of concrete cover.