9812465 Aschheim In this project analytical and experimental studies to confirm the basic concepts and to explore the viability of various potential mechanisms and the use of ordinary and castellated steel beams. The analytical studies will test current hypotheses for stress distributions and sizing criteria, and will explore various attainable mechanisms under cyclic lateral loading with and without gravity loads using inelastic finite element analyses. These studies will also help in defining test specimens and their expected behavior. Experimental studies will establish that shear yielding can protect the beam-column connection from overstress, and will investigate the deformability of the beams as limited by material properties and stability. Ordinary and castellated beams will be tested having circular and hexagonal openings in the web. Test setups will resemble those used in the SAC program. Results from this research will establish the viability of the proposed shear-yielding moment-resistant frame system, and will provide an initial basis for establishing design criteria. Test results from simple beams suggest that the proposed steel frame system will be cost competitive and possess extraordinary ductility. This additional performance enhancement of the lateral- load resisting-system permits story heights to be reduced by 10 to 20%, thereby achieving further economy in material and construction costs. This is a project under the first round (FY'98) competition of joint CMS-INT initiative NSF 98-30 "US-Japan Cooperative Research In Urban Earthquake Disaster Mitigation". ***
