Dimensional analysis of the slotted bolted connections against impulsive earthquake ground motions

• This paper explores the performance of the slotted bolted connections (SBCs) subject to pulse-type earthquake ground motions.
• Three typical SBCs were experimentally compared with a regular bolted-welded connection to capture their nonlinear behaviors.
• The numerical model for the SBCs is characterized by 6 parameters based on a bilinear model of the regular bolted connection.
• The dimensional analysis is used to evaluate the SBC effectiveness and to provide the design guidance of presented SBC model.

The slotted bolted connections (SBCs) are modified bolted connections designed to dissipate input energy through friction slippages during static and dynamic cyclic loadings. Over the recent years, SBCs have received more implementations in buildings with steel moment resisting frames as their ductile behaviors are highly compatible with other connection details against earthquakes, such as the self-centering post-tensioned (PT) steel beam-to-column connections. Hence, it becomes necessary to properly characterize and grasp their dynamic responses. In order to systematically evaluate the effectiveness of SBCs, the dimensional analysis is used in this study to quantify the connection responses as the function of input ground motion characteristics and SBC model parameters. To facilitate this, a simplified yet parameterized numerical model is first proposed to mimic the observed responses of the tested prototype steel SBC. By comparing the dimensionless structural responses of the regular bolted welded connection with that of the SBCs when subject to various pulse type motions, the effectiveness of the presented SBCs is investigated thoroughly. Then, a parametric study is presented based on the nonlinear dimensional spectra, where each of the variables that contribute to the SBC effects was studied in details. Finally, some design recommendations are provided based on the observed results.