Experimental investigation and low-cycle fatigue behavior of I-shaped steel bracing members with gusset plate connections

Experiments on 12 specimens are conducted to study the low-cycle fatigue behavior of I-shaped steel bracing members with gusset plate connections. The experimental results show that there are three locations vulnerable to damage following three different damage sequences. A small clearance distance (1) makes it more likely to develop damage on the gusset plate, and (2) exacerbates the degradation of the rotational and tensile loading capacity, especially when the specimen is subject to large loading amplitudes. When the loading amplitude is small, properly reducing the clearance distance can increase fatigue life and crack development life, leading to a more ductile performance. Using Bayesian updating, a probabilistic model is proposed to predict the fatigue life.