Shaking table tests of a two-story unbraced steel frame

This paper presents some shaking table tests for a one-bay, two-story steel frame under simulated earthquake loading. The test frame was designed to be capable of showing the second-order inelastic behavior under the earthquake loads and to avoid lateral torsional buckling of a single member. The descriptions of test specimen, instruments, set-up procedures, and results are presented. A comparison of the results obtained from experiment and numerical analysis using beam element model of the ABAQUS program is provided. The experiment aims to clarify the inelastic behavior of steel frames subjected to earthquake load and its results can be used to verify the validity of second-order inelastic dynamic analysis techniques of steel frames. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.