This study concerns the development of steel structures so that the connections can deform plastically without brittle fracture during an earthquake. Under earthquake loads, welded beam-to-column connections containing crack-like defects in the weld region have been studied using 3-D nonlinear finite element analyses. The effect of the connection type used for a welded steel structure and of the dynamic loading nature on the stress-strain distribution has been examined, as well as the fracture behaviour of the whole structure. Nonlinear finite element analyses were repeated for various frequency values for the different loading cases in order to study the effect of the strain rate.
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