Seismic behaviour of welded and bolted I-beam to box column connections

The secondary disasters, as fire, colliding, explosion and so on, usually occur following an earthquake. The subsequent actions would be more destructive. In order to investigate structure behaviour after an earthquake, it's important to interpret seismic behaviour of structures and evaluate damage levers induced by various earthquake intensities. This paper presents a preliminary work on investigating behaviour of steel connections under seismic loading, focusing on test and analysis of popular used welded and bolted I-beam to hollow box column connections under cyclic loading. 4 connections, including 2 fully welded connections and 2 double-angle bolted connections were tested in the lab under cyclic loading. The load vs. deformation relationship, strength and dissipated energy were measured during the test, meanwhile deformation, fracture and final failure phenomena were observed. Ductility and earthquake induced damage based on test results are described and evaluated preliminarily. Test results could be useful for further investigation and analysis on pre-damaged connections under various possible post- earthquake actions.