Saeed Erfani - Assistant Professor, Amirkabir University of Technology
Vahid Akrami - Ph.D. Candidate, Amirkabir University of Technology

Perforated beams are being used widely in steel moment frames. Due to thelarge number of parameters involved in analyzing the steel beams with webcutouts, seismic behavior of these structural elements is not known well. In thispaper, a parametric study has been done on different parameters affectingnonlinear behavior and ultimate capacity of these beams. This is done bycomparing nonlinear static load‐displacement curves of different modelsobtained from finite element analysis. Results are presented for fifteenconnections with different cutouts showing the effect of opening height, openinglength, opening location, beam web thickness and opening stiffener. Based onthe results, beams with small perforation have higher load carrying anddeformation capacities while they experience large plastic strains at connectionwelds. Also it is found that opening location has the greatest effect onconnection strength while web thickness and opening stiffener has the greatesteffect on deformation capacity.

Moment Resisting Frames (MRF), Welded connections, Perforation, Finite element