Numerical and parametric study of welded I-beam to RHS column connections

Resumo

This study presents a numerical investigation of the moment resistance and initial stiffness of welded connections between I-beams and rectangular hollow section (RHS) columns with unequal widths under in-plane bending. A finite element (FE) model was developed to examine the influence of key geometric parameters on the structural behavior. The parametric study analyzed variations in: RHS column thickness (t₀), I-beam width (b₁), and I-beam height (h₁), while evaluating three non-dimensional ratios: column slenderness (2γ = b₀/t₀), width ratio (β = b₁/b₀), and height-to-width ratio (η = h₁/b₀). It was observed that, for higher values of widths of the I-beam and column thicknesses, higher joint resistance and initial stiffness results were found. The results indicated that the failure mode was column face plastification. In the connections analyzed, a comparison with current international design standards revealed that existing provisions conservatively predict moment resistance.