Behaviour of the Beam to Column Connection for Tapered Steel Section with Perforation

Connections are joints or nodes which are used to joint elements of a structure at a point such that forces can be transferred between them safely. Tapered steel section with perforation is normally used in construction industry due to light weight. The connection modelled in this research is extended end plate welded with tapered beam steel section with perforation and then bolted to UKC front flange of column. This connection was modelled by using Finite Element software, LUSAS to determine the moment rotation curve, deformed shape and maximum displacement of the connection. The results were compared between perforated and non-perforated sections. The dimension of the model sizes are 460 x 200 x 10 mm thickness of endplate, 457 x 191 x82 UKB provided with 0.4h opening size and tapered ratio of 0.3 and 254 x 254 x 73 UKC. The Finite Element models were varied in terms of the distance from first opening to column’s face and spacing between openings. The parameters of the openings affect the connection behaviour in a number of ways. It was found that when the distance between first opening and column face become longer, the effect of openings is eliminated. Moreover, tapered steel beam section with perforation has less moment resistance value than tapered steel beam section without perforation as much as 4.34% to 9.70%