ABSTRACT
The 1994 Northridge and 1995 Kobe earthquakes revealed that beam-column connections in steel moment frames are susceptible to brittle fracture. There has been a large world-wide research effort aimed at improving this type of connection and predicting brittle behaviour. This paper presents results of a test program on connections designed to represent the weld region of a beam to column connection, and assesses the connections using a failure assessment diagram approach. An important feature of this research is the investigation into the effect that crack tip constraint has on the fracture resistance of this type of welded connection, results presented in this paper demonstrate the significance of this effect.
