ABSTRACT
A mirror arrangement of two portal frames lying horizontally was tested. The frames were tied together by a tension jack which applied point loads on the beam near to the joints. One of the legs of each portal frame was shimmed so that the load applied by the tension jack had a sway component normal to the columns of the portal frames. This sway load was proportional to the vertical load in the columns. The amount of shimming was varied to give different ratios between horizontal and vertical loads. The arrangement was such that after an initial load the frames came away from any ground support and were completely free to sway without any frictional effects.
