The increasingly common case of weak-axis end moments - - eliminating unnecessary joint stiffeners

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Industrial structures are most commonly designed using structural steel to take advantage of its versatility, adaptability, and ductility under complex and often ill-defined loading conditions. In order to cover a variety of load cases that could arise during the life of the structure due to wind, design hydraulic events, machine operation, and potential future repurposing, in addition to other loading scenarios common in industrial sectors, design engineers are increasingly adding more complex combined loading cases to the design documents, creating substantial added costs to the fabrication of the structure. This situation could arise as a result of combined vertical and horizontal loads in addition to strong- and weak-axis moments being specified at beam-to-column connections that in truth would not occur concurrently. Even where they do occur concurrently, the loads normally assume a perfectly rigid connection node, whereas flexibilities that are inherent to the surrounding structure actually tend to relieve the applied connection forces. Identifying these cases with confidence, and accordingly accounting for the true structural behaviour in this region would, in turn, result in a significant cost reduction for the structure. The proposed research project will investigate the mechanics of the overall joint and frame behaviour in order to develop a generalised approach to design for complex load combinations, with emphasis on weak-axis moments, to permit the elimination of stiffeners where justified, and in turn reduce costs.