Masonry infilled walls have been commonly used as interior partitions as well as exterior walls infilled in either steel or reinforced concrete frames in the modern building constructions. In recent years, much research involving both experimentation and numerical modeling has been conducted in an effort to better understand the infill-frame interaction and to provide some rational design approaches. Studies have shown that infill walls can develop a number of possible failure mechanisms, depending on the strength and stiffness of the bounding frames with respect to those of the infills and the geometric configuration of the framing system. Most of models proposed for analysis of infill walls focused on one type of mechanism or the other, and they were not universally applicable to all infilled structures.

In this thesis both analytical and design studies have been conducted on the behaviour of fully and semi-rigidly connected multistorey steel frames. Many topics have been addressed, current design approaches examined and new design methods proposed to allow for such effects based upon a first order linear elastic analysis, which is the most commonly used in normal design. These topics are as follows: 1) The well known amplified sway method (see BS 5950: 1985: Part 1) which can be used to incorporate the effect of the presence of axial loads on the behaviour of sway frames was studied. A modification to this method has been proposed and the validity of the proposed method was checked using an existing computer program [1] to verify the proposed method against a second order analysis. 2) The influence of the action of semi-rigid connections on frame behaviour was examined and the need to conduct a systematic investigation into the problem verified. A simple hand calculation method to incorporate this influence to any of the conventional design methods has been proposed. A second computer program [2] was slightly modified to suit the university of Sheffield IBM3083 mainframe machine and this program was later used in this study. 3) The stiffening effect due to partial sway bracing resulting from the presence of block or brickwork walls in a practical multistorey frame accompanied by the weakening effect due to the finite stiffness of semi-rigid joints on frame serviceability was investigated and a suitable design method is recommended. 4) The behaviour of columns in sway frames with and without partial sway bracing, resulting from the presence of infill panels in practical frames, has been examined. Design charts which can be used to predict a reasonably conservative estimation of the inelastic ultimate load of a framed column in a sway structure are given. These charts are particularly helpful in assisting a designer to make a reasonably good initial selection for the column section sizes in a flexibly connected frame. In addition an empirical formula has been proposed to incorporate the beneficial effect on the column behaviour resulting from the presence of infill panels in real steel frames. In order to conduct this study a computer program developed by Rifai [3] has been modified to simulate the behaviour of a flexibly connected sway subassemblages. 5) Finally general conclusions and recommendations for future work are given.

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This thesis presents the development and the seismic performance evaluation of steel MRFs with nonlinear replaceable links. Although existing MRFs can provide life safety during a design level earthquake, they are expected to sustain significant damage at the locations of flexural yielding fuses in the beams. The design of the fuse is also interlinked with the design of the beam, often resulting in over-design. These drawbacks can be mitigated by introducing replaceable links at the locations of expected inelastic action. Four full-scale beam-to-column subassemblages with two link types were tested under cyclic loading: i) double channels with bolted web connections, ii) W-sections with bolted end plate connections. The experiments demonstrated that MRFs with replaceable links can provide strength and ductility equivalent to existing MRFs. Finite element models were then developed to capture the observed experimental responses, including local buckling, bolt slipping, and bolt bearing. Finally, preliminary design guidelines were proposed.

This thesis presents the development and the seismic performance evaluation of steel MRFs with nonlinear replaceable links. Although existing MRFs can provide life safety during a design level earthquake, they are expected to sustain significant damage at the locations of flexural yielding fuses in the beams. The design of the fuse is also interlinked with the design of the beam, often resulting in over-design. These drawbacks can be mitigated by introducing replaceable links at the locations of expected inelastic action. Four full-scale beam-to-column subassemblages with two link types were tested under cyclic loading: i) double channels with bolted web connections, ii) W-sections with bolted end plate connections. The experiments demonstrated that MRFs with replaceable links can provide strength and ductility equivalent to existing MRFs. Finite element models were then developed to capture the observed experimental responses, including local buckling, bolt slipping, and bolt bearing. Finally, preliminary design guidelines were proposed.

This study investigates seismic response of the Moment-Resisting-Steel Frames (MRSF) with the architectural setbacks. The main objective of the study is to understand the variation of the elastic and inelastic, static and dynamic behavior with changes in the geometric dimensions of the tower portion. A second objective of the study is to determine the adequacy of the analysis procedures of various rigors, specified in current seismic design provision, in predicting those behaviors for MRSF with various size of setback. The analytical study is conducted using a regular and 16 irregular models to capture all possible combinations of configuration of setback in five-story, five-bay MRSFs. An irregular model is developed by gradually changing the horizontal and vertical dimensions of the tower portion of the regular base 2D frame-model. All models were designed for (a) equal global displacement and uniform distribution of inter-story drift under First-Mode (FM) lateral force distribution pattern at first significant yield, and (b) equal period of vibration at the first mode, using Nonlinear Static Seismic analysis procedure. Among the conclusions derived from the research is that the variation of (a) the elastic and inelastic inter-story drift, the ductility demand for the top three stories, and (b) the elastic and inelastic global displacement exhibited a pattern similar to the variation of the FM participation factor at the roof, PF1Φr,1. The square-root-of-sum-of-square (SRSS) distribution provided accurate estimates of elastic story shear and inter-story drift demand as well as the story yield strength and drift.

A fundamental task in structural stability analysis is to ensure the safety of structures throughout their operational life so as to prevent catastrophic consequences either at ambient or elevated temperatures. This thesis concerns the stability of unbraced steel frames due to abnormal loadings or fire loads, and develops practical methods to evaluate the stability capacity of unbraced steel frames at ambient temperature or in fire. The problem of determining the elastic buckling strengths of unbraced steel frames subjected to variable loadings can be expressed as an optimization problem with stability constraints based on the concept of storey-based buckling. The optimization problem can be solved by the linear programming method, which is considerably simpler and more suitable for engineering practice than the nonlinear programming method. However, it was found that the frame buckling strength obtained from the linear programming method based on Taylor series approximation on column stiffness may be overestimated in some cases. Thus, a secant approximation of the column stiffness was introduced, and a modified linear programming method based on the secant approximation was proposed. Numerical examples show that the linear programming method in light of the secant approximation can yield conservative results and maintain simplicity. In spite of the convenience of the modified linear programming method, numerical examples show that the linear programming method cannot accurately detect the maximum and minimum frame buckling strengths in some cases. Therefore, an alternative method to assess the lateral stiffness of an axially loaded column derived by using two cubic Hermite elements to signify the column is proposed. Unlike the column stiffness obtained from the Euler-Bernoulli beam theory containing transcendental functions, the stiffness in the proposed method includes only polynomials. Thus, the column stiffness within the proposed method enables the minimization and maximization problems to be solved by efficient gradient-based nonlinear programming algorithms, which overcome the inability of linear programming algorithm to detect the minimum frame buckling strength in some cases. The accuracy of the column stiffness associated with the proposed method was compared with that of the Euler-Bernoulli beam theory. Four unbraced steel frames were investigated to demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed method. It is known that the evaluation of the lateral stability of steel frames subjected to elevated temperatures is different from that at ambient temperature due to the degradation of material strength. Thus, the storey-based buckling method at ambient temperature was extended to evaluating the stability of unbraced steel frames subjected to elevated temperature. To simulate a steel column exposed to the elevated temperature, an analytical model was proposed to examine the effects of axial loading, elevated temperature, and thermal boundary restraints on the lateral stiffness of steel columns in unbraced frames. The procedure of evaluating the stability capacity of unbraced steel frames at elevated temperature was then concluded. Numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the evaluation procedure of the proposed method. The column model was then refined to evaluate the lateral stiffness of steel column subjected to non-uniform elevated temperature distributions along the longitudinal direction. The lateral stiffness equation of the column model was derived based on the Euler-Bernoulli beam theory. The procedure to evaluate the stability capacity of unbraced steel frames subjected to non-uniform elevated temperature distributions was then concluded. The numerical examples were investigated with the proposed method for non-uniform elevated temperature distributions. Finally, initial attempts were made to evaluate the stability of unbraced steel frames with fire-protected columns at different fire scenarios. A degradation factor charactering the variation of the Young's Modulus of steel at elevated temperature was introduced. The objective and constraint functions were constructed, and optimal tools were used to determine the buckling strength of an unbraced steel frame at different fire scenarios.

In this study steel framing systems are investigated with regards to their lateral load carrying capacity and in this context seismic response modification factors of individual systems are analyzed. Numerous load resisting layouts, such as different bracing systems and un-braced moment resisting frames with various bay and story configurations are designed and evaluated in a parametric fashion. Three types of beam to column connection conditions are incorporated in evaluation process. Frames, designed according to Turkish seismic code, are investigated by nonlinear static analysis with the guidance of previous studies and recent provisions of FEMA. Method of analysis, design and evaluation data are presented in detail. Previous studies in literature, history and the theory of response modification phenomenon is presented. Results are summarized, main weaknesses and ambiguities introduced to design by the use of &ldquo / R&rdquo / factors are stated depending on the observed behavior.

A two-phase study was undertaken to investigate the fundamental period of concentrically braced steel frames (CBFs) designed according to Eurocode 8. In the first phase, typical office buildings were studied by conducting two types of designs which are called as iterative and non-iterative. Non-iterative design is composed of obtaining final period by designing the structure with lower bound expression in Eurocode 8 while iterative design is similar to the non-iterative one but an updating of periods was considered in order to converge assumed and final periods. Different overstrength provisions are considered in the study. Lower bound expression in Eurocode 8 results in shorter periods which indicates that this expression can be safely utilized. The lower bound represented by Tremblay (2005) is also admissible except for some cases including shorter periods. In the second phase, a simple expression is derived for estimating the design base acceleration for braced frames proportioned according to Eurocode 8. This method requires inelastic top story drift values which were obtained from structures designed in the first phase using iterative method. These drifts were represented by simple expressions utilizing data fitting techniques. The method gives suitable first order estimate for the design base acceleration.

Η εργασία αυτή ασχολείται με τον υπολογισμό της δυναμικής απόκρισης επίπεδων μεταλλικών πλαισίων που υποβάλλονται σε σεισμική διέγερση, λαμβάνοντας υπόψη την επίδραση του ρυθμού παραμόρφωσης στις ιδιότητες του υλικού κατασκευής.Από την έρευνα προέκυψαν πολύ χρήσιμα συμπεράσματα που αιτιολογούν, σε ικανοποιητικό βαθμό, την απρόβλεπτη συμπεριφορά μεταλλικών κατασκευών κατά τη διάρκεια ισχυρών σεισμικών γεγονότων στο παρελθόν. / This work elaborates with the calculation of the dynamic response of plane steel frames subjected to earthquake motions taking care of strain rate effect on material properties. The obtained results justify, in a satisfactory way, the unpredictable behavior of steel structures observed in the past due to severe earthquake ground motions.