| Abstract: | This paper presents the response of steel moment resisting frames with damage to their welded connections for two repair options: (1) reweld only; and (2) reweld and strengthen connection. Two different nonlinear dynamic analysis programs are used to research the effect of repairing and strengthening these weld failures and also for predicting the expected building response assuming that the connection is not repaired. The effect on response is studied for connections where weld failure reduces the capacity to 50, 20 and 5% of the original moment capacity. The frames selected for the research are in a real building damaged during the Northridge earthquake. They are subjected to an ensemble of artificial earthquake records that have an equal probability of occurring at the site for comparative studies. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. |
