Aug 15, 2011 – Several times a year we get calls about understanding the Seismic Design Category (SDC). There are significant detailing ramifications of the different levels and since two of the variables in determining the SDC use letters,

This structural technote addresses the “R” value we show in our General Notes sheet in our drawing set – what it signifies, what the ramifications are and how we determine which value to use. But first, a little

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Happy New Year!

We thought we would start off the new year with a series of Structural Engineering 101 emails about a relatively new type of patented moment connection that has become popular on the east

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HISTORY
The original 1994 patented design for the SidePlate™ connection was mostly fillet welds but did still require a full penetration field weld, albeit an easier weld than the typical beam to column weld. Although most

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HISTORY
The all fillet welded R=3 version of SidePlate really started gaining traction on the east coast shortly after it debuted in 2011. We have completed several projects using it. However, the SidePlate engineers had one

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It’s pretty obvious from the images in our previous two emails the SidePlate moment connection does not have a very high risk of interfering with much. The connection hugs the beam and column closely. However, we

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ANALYSIS
The patented SidePlate connection has been around long enough now that our analysis program (RAMSteel) includes the analysis for these connections. We specify which connections in the lateral moment frames are SidePlate and the program