Design equations for prefabricated steel moment connections

Recently, modular prefabricated steel moment connections have been widely studied by several researchers. These connections are made of tubular columns that are ended to horizontal plates at both sides, an inter-story short column, and truss beams that are joined to the connecting plates using top and bottom plates. In this study, a series of equations have been developed and presented for designing each component of this type of connection. Then, to verify the proposed equations, the connection was modeled in ABAQUS and then the results extracted from the equations and modeling were compared. The findings indicated that the proposed equations have the required accuracy.