• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.557-566
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• 2002

This paper summarized the results of a full-scale cyclic seismic testing on four reduced beam section (RBS) steel moment connections. Specifically, these tests addressed a bolted web versus a welded web connection and strong versus medium panel zone (PZ) strength as key test variables. Specimens with medium PZ strength were designed to promote balanced energy dissipation from both PZ and RBS regions, in order to reduce the requirement for expensive doubler plates. Both strong and medium PZ specimens with welded web connection were able to provide sufficient connection rotation capacity required of special moment-resisting frames. On the other hand, specimens with bolted web connection performed poorly due to premature brittle fracture of the beam flange at the weld access hole. Unlike the case of web-welded specimens, specimens with cheaper bolted web connection could not transfer the actual plastic moment of the original (or unreduced) beam section to the column. No fracture occurred within the beam groove welds of any connection in this testing program. If fracture within the beam flange groove weld is avoided by using quality welding procedure as in this study, the fracture issue tends to move into the beam flange base metal at the weld access hole. Supporting analytical study was also conducted in order to understand the observed base metal fracture from the engineering mechanics perspective.