CYCLIC RESPONSE OF BEAM-TO-UPRIGHT JOINTS IN STEEL FRAMES FOR ELEVATORS

With the continuously rising world population, buildings are becoming taller and taller. For this reason, elevator systems are getting vital and worldwide engineers are pushing to design costeffective tall steel structural systems used to sustain them. The key point is to guarantee safety and limited cost of these structures and, consequently, thin-walled steel members are frequently adopted to this purpose. The paper presents and discusses the main results of an experimental-numerical investigation on the cyclic response of beam-to-upright bolted joints used to assemble the steel skeleton frame for elevators. Firstly, the monotonic response is discussed, which is essential to calibrate the loading rule to be applied in the cyclic tests. Then the cyclic response is presented. Two different crosssections for the uprights and two for the beams were considered, for a total of four different combinations. Finally, finite elements models were created and calibrated against the experimental results with the aim to propose improvement useful to increase their resistance and stiffness.