Behaviour of Gusset Plate Connections Designed According to prEN 1998–1-2:2022

Specific rules for the seismic design of gusset plate connections of concentrically braced frames are provided in the second generation of Eurocode 8 (i.e., EN 1998–1-2). These rules substantially differ from the checks formerly recommended by EN 1998‐1:2005, which were rather vague and less prescriptive, since neither the interaction in the pre-buckling nor post-buckling range of the brace were verified as well as no details to accommodate the rotation of the buckled braces were considered. To investigate the effectiveness and the accuracy of the novel design rules, as well as to highlight the relevant design implication of different analytical methods to distribute the forces within the gusset plate, corner connections have been designed for a prototype cross-concentrically braced frame (X-CBF) and analysed through finite element (FE) simulations. The preliminary results show that the final shape of the gusset connections highly depends on the assumptions to transfer the design forces, while numerical results show that further studies are required to investigate the realistic distribution of forces in bracing connections.