The Behavior factor of intermediate moment-resisting steel frames considering joint flexibility

The moment-resisting steel frame building is highly used due to their advantages such as, high speed construction coupled with appropriate strength and ductility. The main advantage of this system is related to architectural considerations and the possibility of creating openings within all spans. Connections play an outstanding role in the seismic responses of this structural system. The connections are generally assumed to have a rigid behavior in analyzing and designing of the moment-resisting steel buildings. Studying of the previous investigations indicates that the assumption of rigid behavior for the beam-to-column connections is not always correct and can bring about a significant error in the responses. In this study, behavior factor of moment-resisting steel frames considering joint flexibility is evaluated. To do so, some intermediate moment-resisting steel frames with various number of stories and bays including 1-bay, 1- and 2-story frames, 2-bay, 2-, 4-, 6-, 8-, and 10-story frames, 3-bay, 3-, 6-, 9-, and 12-story frames and 4-story, 2-, 6-, 10-, and 14-story frames are designed regarding Iranian seismic code and Iranian national building code for designing steel structures. After that, the capacity curves of these frames are achieved using pushover analysis once considering rigid connections and again taking joint flexibility into consideration using OpenSees software. To model the nonlinear behavior of connections, one zero-length rotational spring is assigned to each end of beam members. Then, the behavior factor of each frame is calculated using the recommended procedure of FEMA-P695. The outcomes show that for the frames with rigid connections, the acquired behavior factors are almost close to 5 (which is the prescribed behavior factor in Iranian seismic code for the intermediate moment-resisting steel frames). Furthermore, for the frames with semi-rigid connections (60%), the behavior factors are close to 5 as well. For 10-story 2-bay, 12-story 3-bay, and 14-story 4-bay frames the prescribed behavior factor in Iranian seismic code does not meet. For these frames, the ratio of height to total-span that is known as the slenderness coefficient of the frame is higher than others, so these frames fall into slender frames. Results show that for the frames with semi-rigid connections (60%), despite of decreasing the over-strength factors in some cases, their ductility increased, therefore, the behavior factors are achieved higher than those of the frames with rigid connections. All in all, it is observed that the nonlinear behavior of connections can significantly affect the seismic behavior of the moment-resisting steel frames. Comparing the behavior factors calculated in this investigation with the prescribed value of this factor in code 2800 showed that for the frames with rigid connections, 80% of the obtained behavior factors are higher than 5. For frames with semi-rigid connections (80% and 60%), 0%, and 66% of the behavior factors meet the proposed value of code 2800, respectively. Regarding the observations, it is recommended that the influence of joint flexibility be considered in assigning a value of behavior factor to design the moment-resisting steel frames.