Evaluation of the Minimum Column-to-Beam Strength Ratios to

Prevent the Formation of Plastic Hinges on the Column Parts

Consisting of Joints in Special Steel Moment Frames
Se-Woon Choi1 and Hyo-Seon Park2

Abstract: ANSI/AISC 341-05 requires the seismic designs of special steel moment frames
satisfy the Strong Column-Weak Beam condition to ensure a high level of ductility.
However, numerous studies have shown that a design satisfying this condition can still
experience the formation of plastic hinges on the column parts of joints. It induces the soft
story and reduces the ductility of a building. Therefore, a reinforced condition above the
column-to-beam moment strength ratio of the current provision is required. In this study we
present an optimum seismic design algorithm for preventing plastic hinges on the column
parts of joints in special steel moment frames. Then we apply the proposed algorithm to a
2-dimensional steel moment frame to evaluate the minimum column-to-beam moment
strength ratio required for prevention of plastic hinges on column parts of joints.

Keywords: strong column-weak beam, plastic hinges, soft story, special steel moment frames

Introduction

Buildings are generally designed to do inelastic

behavior for the seismic load. Seismic designs ensure
the required ductility through plastic deformation of
building members.
ANSI/AISC 341-05 presents the concept of
'Strong Column-Weak Beam' for ensuring a required
ductility level in special steel moment frames. This is
the design concept that the moment strength of
columns are greater than those of beams. The reason
is so that the structure's plastic deformation is
concentrated on the beams, thus preventing brittle
failures.
The Strong Column-Weak Beam condition
presented in the seismic design is based on elastic
analysis and assumes that the inflection point of a
column is located in the its center area as in Figure
1(a). However, a number of inelastic analysis results
of moment distribution on columns have revealed
that the inflection points of a column can move to end
areas of it or that the bending moment distribution of
it can form a single curvature. In such cases, the
upper or the lower part of column can be subject to a
larger load than anticipated, as in Figure 1(b),
resulting in the damage of it(Park and Paulay, 1975).
1
Graduate Student, Department of Architectural
Engineering, Yonsei University, Shinchondong
Seodeamoongoo, Seoul, Korea
2
Professor, Department of Architectural
Engineering, Yonsei University, Shinchondong
Seodeamoongoo, Seoul, Korea
(a) Double Curvature (b) Single Curvature
Fig. 1. Moment equilibrium by column curvature
type
A number of studies have shown that a design
satisfying the Strong Column-Weak Beam condition
of the seismic design code/standard does not ensure
to prevent the formation of plastic hinge on column
parts at joints that concentrate deformation on a
specific floor(Lee, 1996; Nakashima and Sawaizumi,
2000; Dooley and Bracci, 2001; Kuntz and Brouning,
2003; Medina and Krawinkler, 2005). Therefore, a
more reinforced condition on the moment strength
ratio of joints is necessary. Though there are several
existing studies on the minimum column-to-beam
strength ratio, no clear reference ratio has been
published yet.
In this study we present an optimum seismic
design algorithm for preventing plastic hinges on
column parts consisting of column-to-beam joints in
special steel moment frames. We apply the proposed
algorithm to a 2-dimensional example of 3-story
special steel moment frame for validation purposes

International Conference on Civil and Environmental Engineering, ICCEE-2009/ Oct. 2009/ Pukyong National University/ 1
and evaluate the minimum column-to-beam moment i : the density of the ith member
strength ratio required for prevention of plastic Ai : the cross-sectional area of ith member
hinges on column parts of joints.
li : the length of ith member
Formulation m : the number of members consisting of the
structure
Most of structural optimization problems has several max : the maximum moment strength ratio among
conflicting objective functions. So we sometimes column-to-beam joints of the structure
need to use multi-objective optimization methods to excluding the top floor joints.
solve practical problems. This paper proposes the
multi-objective optimal seismic design method which Constraints
minimizes the maximum column-to-beam moment Constraints used in this algorithm include the
ratio among the considering joints in special steel following Eq. (4) to (8) constraints, which are the
moment frames and the structural weight. This strength constraints for columns and beams, the
method uses Non-dominated Sorting inter-story drift constraint, the constraint on the
Algorithm-II(NSGA-II) proposed by Deb(2002). formation of plastic hinges on column parts
The Strong Column-Weak Beam condition of consisting of joints, and the cross-sectional area
ANSI/AISC 341-05 excludes the top joints of the top constraint on continuous columns. Generally it is
floor from consideration. This study also does not known that the inter-story drifts condition is acted as
consider the formation of plastic hinges on column a factor governing the seismic design of steel moment
parts consisting of the top floor joints in our objective frames. So it can be developed the case that the area
functions and constraints. of the upper column is bigger than that of the lower
The moment strength ratio defined in the column. We use Eq. (8) as a constraint due to this
Strong Column-Weak Beam condition of ANSI/AISC possibility.
341-05 considers the moment strength reduction
effect by the column axial force. However, the column
column-to-beam strength ratio definition used in this Constraint #1 : 1.0 (4)
a ,column
study does not consider the strength reduction by
axial forces like Eq. (1). The reason is that the beam
Constraint #2 : 1.0 (5)
moment strength ratio of Eq. (1) can directly be a ,beam
computed from the cross-section data of members
consisting of a structure without analysis.
Constraint #3 : 1.0 (6)
a

=
(F Z )
y c
(1) Constraint #4 : 1.0 +
N plastic hinges
1.0 (7)
(F Z )
y b 2 N jo int s
Aic+1, j
where, Constraint #5 : 1.0 (8)
Aic, j
( Fy Z )c : Sum of plastic bending moment
strengths of columns where,
( Fy Z )b : Sum of plastic bending moment column : the required stress of column
strengths of beams a , column : the allowable stress of column
Objective Functions beam : the required stress of column
In our algorithm we use two objective functions as a ,beam : the allowable stress of column
Eq. (2) and (3). The first objective function : the maximum inter-story drift obtained from
minimizes the weight of the structure, and the second
objective function minimizes the maximum ratio analysis
among moment strength ratios of column-to-beam a : the allowable inter-story drift
joints. The reason for using the second objective N plastic hinges : the number of plastic hinges developed
function is to prevent that the moment strength ratio on the considering column parts
of a specific joint becomes excessive. N jo int s : the number of the considering joints
m Aic, j : the cross-sectional area of the ith floor and jth
Objective #1 : min Al
i =1
i i i (2)
column
Objective #2 : min max (3)
Formation of a column plastic hinge is defined
by Eq. (9). If the curvature value obtained from
where, analysis is greater than the value computed using Eq.

2/ International Conference on Civil and Environmental Engineering, ICCEE-2009/ Oct. 2009/ Pukyong National University
(9), we regard that a plastic hinge is formed.
Mp
= (9)
EI
where,
: the curvature of column
M p : the plastic moment strength of column
E : youngs modulus
I : the moment of inertia
Example
We apply the proposed algorithm to a 3-story steel
moment structure of Fig. 2, which was also used in
Hasan et. al. (2002) and Xu et. al. (2006).
The number of beams and columns DB used in
the algorithm is 16 respectively, where their
cross-sectional areas and the moments of inertia have
the relations shown in Fig. 3. The load combinations
considered for the strength design use three among
the load combinations of ASCE 7-05 as the
followings.
1.4DL (10)
1.2DL+1.6LL (11)
1.2D+1.0E+1.0LL (12)
where,
DL: Dead load
LL: Live load
E: Earthquake load
The strength design conditions of AISC/AISC
360-05 is used. OpenSees (2006) is used as an
analysis tool for static elastic and inelastic analysis.
For structural modeling we use the centerline
modeling method, where panel zones are not modeled.
We assume that plastic hinges are formed at end parts
of a member. As the lateral load pattern for
non-linear analysis, we apply the inverse-triangular
pattern. In FEMA 273 the maximum inter-story drift
ratio of moment structure is limited to 5.0% for the
collapse prevention performance level. For this
Fig. 2. Elevation diagram of the example
International Conference on Civil and Environmental Engineering, ICCEE-2008/ Oct. 2008/ Hiroshima University/ 3
reason we set the target displacement for non-linear
analysis as 5.0% of the height of a building.
Table 1 summarizes the results obtained from
applying the proposed algorithm to the example.
Since the feasible solutions obtained from the
algorithm application have both 1.0 as the values of
constraints 4 and 5, we can estimate the feasible
solutions are governed by constraints 4 and 5.
Distribution of moment strength ratios of the feasible
solutions shows that the minimum moment strength
ratio is greater than 1.0 recommended in
ANSI/AISC 341-05. As the weight of the solution
increases, the difference between min( i ) and
max( i ) decreases. This means that a greater weight
of the structure is required to design for distributing
moment strength ratios of joints evenly. In general,
the moment strength ratios of joints on outer areas are
greater than those of joints in the inner area. This is
because the number of beams used for computing
moment strength ratios for outer joints is one, while
that for the strength ratios for inner joints is two.
Conclusions
In this study we presented an optimum seismic design
algorithm for preventing the formation of plastic
hinges on column parts of joints in a steel moment
structure. The proposed algorithm was applied to an
example 2D 3-story steel moment frame and obtained
the following results.
1) The feasible solutions obtained from the
algorithm application shows that plastic hinges
were not formed at column parts consisting of
joints. That is, application of the proposed
algorithm on the example yielded feasible
solutions with no plastic hinge occurrences on
column part of joints as intended.
2) Feasible solutions of the example showed that a
more reinforced column-to-beam moment
strength ratio than that specified in ANSI/AISC
341-05 is required.
Fig. 3. Relations between cross-sectional area and
moment of inertia of beam DB and Column DB
 Table 1. Results of algorithm application on the example.
Weight Constraint Moment ratio of column-to-beam joints
Design
(kN) #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 1 , 5 2 ~ 4 6 , 10 7 ~ 9 min( i ) max( i )
Initial Design 5378 0.25 0.46 0.67 1.00 1.00 3.24 2.00 3.55 2.20 2.00 3.55
#1 3849 0.28 0.57 0.97 1.00 1.00 4.21 2.04 4.33 1.95 1.95 4.33
#2 4221 0.27 0.55 0.88 1.00 1.00 3.92 1.96 3.71 1.69 1.69 3.92
#3 4299 0.28 0.51 0.88 1.00 1.00 3.73 2.15 3.16 1.86 1.86 3.73
#4 4366 0.24 0.55 0.85 1.00 1.00 3.33 2.56 2.69 1.59 1.59 3.33
#5 4739 0.23 0.50 0.85 1.00 1.00 3.16 3.31 3.16 2.21 2.21 3.31
#6 4881 0.24 0.48 0.89 1.00 1.00 3.18 2.79 3.04 1.85 1.85 3.18
Feasible #7 4963 0.21 0.57 0.80 1.00 1.00 2.99 3.09 2.69 2.01 2.01 3.09
Solutions #8 5121 0.24 0.58 0.83 1.00 1.00 2.38 1.92 3.04 1.96 1.92 3.04
#9 5154 0.23 0.57 0.81 1.00 1.00 2.30 1.92 2.99 1.66 1.66 2.99
#10 5177 0.22 0.56 0.75 1.00 1.00 2.57 2.02 2.34 1.39 1.39 2.57
#11 5187 0.21 0.56 0.76 1.00 1.00 2.34 2.12 2.11 1.39 1.39 2.34
#12 5618 0.25 0.57 0.76 1.00 1.00 2.00 1.61 2.11 1.36 1.36 2.11
#13 5736 0.23 0.38 0.73 1.00 1.00 1.74 1.66 1.89 1.43 1.43 1.89
#14 6610 0.22 0.58 0.75 1.00 1.00 1.60 1.71 1.62 1.32 1.32 1.71

3) To enable a design requiring less weight of the
structure while ensuring no plastic hinge
occurrences on column parts of joints, the
minimum moment strength ratio has to increase
and so does the deviation of moment strength
ratios of joints.
Acknowledgement
The work presented in this paper was supported by
the National Research Laboratory Program(Project
No. 2005-01504) of the Ministry of Science and
Technology of Korea.
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4/ International Conference on Civil and Environmental Engineering, ICCEE-2009/ Oct. 2009/ Pukyong National University