Behaviour of steel cap plate connections: Experimental tests

Abstract

This paper reports the results of a study conducted to investigate the behaviour of steel cap plate connections. In the analysis and design, connections are characterized as either rigid or pinned and between these two extremities lies the actual behaviour of steel frame connections, which is semi-rigid. This classification is characterized by the nonlinear moment-rotation relationship which must be incorporated in the analysis. A cap plate connection is widely used in industrial steel frames for its advantages over other types of building connections, but the response of such a connection has not sufficiently been experimentally determined. In this research, the behaviour of cap plate connections was studied by testing four full-scale connections. Experimental results obtained would add valuable information to the available test data concerning steel connections since sparse data is available in the literature for this type of connection. Mathematical and numerical models were used to analyze the cap plate connection and close correlations were found between these models and the experimental results.