Performance of Weld-Retrofit Beam-to-Column Shear Tab Connections

Single plate shear tab connections are a simple means to connect beams to their supporting members. The tab is fillet-welded to the supporting column in the fabrication shop, and then field bolted to the beam web on the construction site. Sit-uations may arise on site in which the bolt holes do not align. Instead of reaming holes or refabricating the connection, a cost efficient alternative is to use a weld-retrofit connection between the beam web and the shear tab. The AISC recommends that this retrofit approach not be taken due to concerns with the rotational ductility of the connection; however, no test-based performance evaluation was available for the weld-retrofit connection. The intent of the paper is to summarize the laboratory phase of a research project in which various weld-retrofit schemes of shear tab con-nections were evaluated. The connection performance is compared with nominally identical bolted shear tab connections.