Page 328 - Handbook of Structural Steel Connection Design and Details

Partially Restrained Connections

Partially Restrained Connections 313

4.3.3 End-plate connections
End-plate connections are common in some areas of the country and very
popular in prefabricated metal buildings. The mechanistic behavior of an
end-plate connection is very similar to that of a T stub, with the differ-
ence being that the size of the plate is longer than that of the flange of a T
stub. If the plate is thin or of moderate thickness compared to the column
flange, yield lines will form between the holes in the plate resulting in a
plastic mechanism. Because the pattern of yield lines can be complex, the
computation of the strength of the plate is not as simple as for a T stub.
In the latter case, only two yield lines occur on each half of the stub, one
at the bolts and one at the intersection of the flange and web (Fig. 4.17).
Two typical yield-line patterns for some common end-plate configurations
are shown in Fig. 4.20 (Murray and Meng, 1996, Murray and Watson,
1996). The group patterns can be very complex and not easy to determine
for cases with multiple bolts in one row. Yield lines around each individ-
ual bolt, in addition to the group patterns shown in Fig. 4.16, are also pos-
sible. If the end plate is thick, the behavior will shift to that of a thick
T stub. In this case the failure will be either by tension in the bolts to the
column or bolt shear in the connection to the beam. In all cases, care
should be exercised in not overstressing the column flanges. The strength
of the column flange can be checked by a yield-line approach (Nader and
Astaneh-Asl, 1992), just as for the plate itself (Fig. 4.21).

b f
g
p f

p f

h s

Figure 4.20 Typical yield-line patterns for end plates (Murray and Meng, 1996,
Murray and Watson, 1996).

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