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Structural steel connection

A column stub with a fin plate under gravity shear from a framing beam. The motion is geometric: panel-zone racking and in-plane parallelogram shear of the tab, not a banana curve of the column.

Boundary conditions & loads · Elasto-plastic cantilever

Structural steel connection

STL surface · column stub in $Y$ · fin plate at mid-height · gravity shear from a framing beam

Clamped base · shear tab under gravity $V$ · column almost straight · plate parallelogram + panel-zone racking

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|U|
0—0
Beam shear V250 kN
Moment M62.5 kN·m
Plate drop—
Max |U|—
Vertices—
Triangles—
σvm max—

Setup

  • Tessellation from structural steel connection 3d model.stl (welded to 3958 unique vertices)
  • Column along $Z_{\mathrm{STL}}$ shown upright in Three.js $Y$
  • Fin plate on the $-X$ face at mid-height — a shear-tab / fin-plate joint
  • Base clamped. Gravity shear $V=250\,\mathrm{kN}$ on the tab; eccentricity $e=250\,\mathrm{mm}$ racks the panel zone

What the motion is

  • Column: finite-rotation beam (sections stay rigid). Mild drift, not a banana curve
  • Fin plate: in-plane parallelogram shear about the weld — the real shear-tab mode
  • Column web at the joint: panel-zone racking; flanges stay straighter
  • Scale multiplies the angles then rebuilds the pose, so exaggeration does not stretch the plates