2000 - JAMA Develops New Rigid Connection For Heavy Steel Beams and Columns

JAMA staff, led by Farzad Naeim, Kan Patel and Kai-Chen Tu, engineered a new Rigid Connection for Heavy Beams and Columns in Steel Moment Resisting Frames, offering the research and detailing to the engineering community for free. The design was the result of vulnerabilities revealed in welded connections in Special Moment Resisting Frames, or SMRFs, during the 1994 earthquake. Subsequent research on upgraded connections, up until that point, had only focused on small and medium sized beams.
JAMA’s expertise on long-span and tall structures offered an opportunity to design a new “JAMA Connection” that passed analytical as well as full-scale experimental studies with 20 in. and 24 in. square box columns and W36-W40 beams. A total of three laboratory tests were conducted with the assistance of USC and the University of Nevada, and all specimens withstood large plastic rotation without any sign of deterioration in stiffness or strength.