Behavior of skewed extended shear tab connections part II: Connection to supporting flange

It has been proven that the torsional behavior of the extended shear tab connections is affected by the connection orientation due to the additional torsional moment when the plate is welded to the supporting member web (flexible support) in Part I of this study. However, these connections may act differently when the plate is welded to the flange of the supporting member (rigid support). The goal of this study is to check the adequacy of this finding for skewed extended shear tab connections when the plate is welded to the supporting member flange (rigid support). The finite element software ABAQUS ABAQUS (2013a) [1] was used to simulate and study the behavior of orthogonal extended shear tab connections studied experimentally by Metzger (2006). The Finite Element Analysis (FEA) of these connections captured the same failure modes as the experiments. Moreover, additional failure modes were observed by the FEA such as shear yield of the plate, bolt shear, plate twist, and local buckling of the supporting member. After validating the models, the shear tab and supported beam in the orthogonal configurations were oriented at different angles to check the effect of the connection orientation on the behavior of these connections. It was observed that the supporting member contributes in resisting the additional torsional moment at the elastic level. However, this contribution significantly reduces with the increase of the connection shear force and becomes neglected at the plastic level. Additionally, the effect of the connection orientation on the torsional and bending behavior of these connections overall is insignificant. Thus, the modifications on the design procedure for the skewed extended shear tab connections with flexible support in Part I do not apply to these connections.