City Research Online

Abstract

Brittle fracture in welded steel moment connections is often initiated by concentrated stresses and low-cycle strain demands at the column face, particularly in the groove weld and adjacent heat-affected zone. Circular reduced web section (RWS) openings can act as ductile fuses within the beam web and relocate inelasticity away from the beam-to-column interface when opening diameter and offset are properly proportioned. A validated three-dimensional finite element model is used to analyse 7,575 welded subassemblies covering IPE270 to IPE600 beams, steel grades S235 to S355, span-to-depth ratios 2L/h = 6 to 14, and geometry ratios do/h and S/h. Two indicators are extracted from a defined column-face region: normalised von Mises stress ησ and accumulated equivalent plastic strain PEEQ at column face. The results show that do/h dominates demand relocation. Column-face yielding is typically avoided for do/h ≥ 0.60, while complete suppression of column-face plasticity (PEEQ at column face = 0) is achieved consistently for do/h = 0.75 with S/h ≈ 0.8 to 1.4. These corridors provide a practical screening basis for circular RWS retrofit detailing.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2026 The Author(s). ce/papers published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Publisher Keywords:	circular reduced web section, column-face demand, demand relocation, von Mises stress, equivalent plastic strain (PEEQ), seismic retrofitting, finite element analysis
Subjects:	T Technology > TA Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General)
Departments:	School of Science & Technology School of Science & Technology > Department of Engineering
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

Export

Downloads