Ultimate strength of gusset plate connections with fillet welds

Braced frames are commonly used as lateral-load resisting systems in seismic design. The braces are connected to the beams and columns by gusset plate connections. Fillet welds are commonly used to connect the gusset plates to the beams and columns. And the fracture of the interface welds were observed in the past research and earthquakes. This paper focused on the ultimate strength of interface weld connection between gusset plate and frame elements when the brace is in tension. Pilot experimental study was conducted with four specimens and proved that the evaluation recommended by AIJ works well. A verified finite element analysis model was developed to conduct a parametric study. The studied parameters are the brace angle, gusset plate size, and eccentricity of brace. From the parameter study, it is confirmed that the tensile brace axial force is primarily transferred to the interface weld within an extension Whitmore region, which is named as the effective region in the AIJ evaluation. And the extension Whitmore region is affected by the gusset plate geometrical constraint. A revised extension Whitmore region is suggested by considering the aforementioned parameters. The AIJ evaluation using the revised extension Whitmore region is also compared with the UFM, and showed better evaluation for the rectangular shape gusset plate.