WARPING TRANSFER THROUGH JOINTS OF RHS COLUMN AND I-BEAM

The rigid joints between a rectangular hollow section (RHS) column and an I-beam are widely used in steel constructions. The warping transfer through these joints between the columns and beams is studied in this paper. Simply relationships are proposed, based on the previous work by the authors, and the method is developed for use of these relationships in the 3-D FE analysis employing thin-walled beam elements. Typical numerical examples are analyzed, with which very good agreements can be found between the results from the FE analyses using shell element modeling and thin-walled beam elements with the warping transfer relationships proposed in this paper. Comparisons between the results using different methods also indicate that the two methods widely adopted in the 3-D FE analysis are not appropriate for the beam-to-column joints under considerations.