General component based cruciform finite elements to model 2D steel joints with beams of equal and different depths

The cruciform elements have 4 nodes with 3 degrees of freedom per node, and take into consideration, in a consistent and complete way, the stiffness properties (components in Eurocode), including those of the panel zone. The proposed elements allow modelling simple, rigid and semi-rigid connections. In addition, they take into account all the internal forces that coincide at the joint, and the eccentricities of the internal forces coming from the beams and columns that meet at the joint. Numerical examples are solved that compare the proposed approach with complete finite element models of sample frames. The results validate the approach and demonstrate its advantages.