Gencturk, Bora E.2016-08-282016-08-28August 2012014-08http://hdl.handle.net/10657/1456In designing low-rise metal building systems, column-base connections are commonly assumed to be pinned with no rotational stiffness for both serviceability and strength limit states; however, practical experience indicates that even base connections that are designed to be pinned have a non-negligible rotational stiffness. The excess displacement resulting from this assumption is addressed by increasing the flexural stiffness of the frame members, which unnecessarily increases the cost of low-rise metal buildings. There is a distinct lack of design guidelines and experimental data to support the use of non-zero rotational stiffness at the so-called pinned column bases. The objective of this research is to quantify the rotational stiffness as well as the strength of column base-plate connections in low-rise metal building systems by testing eight full-scale base-plate connections with varying base-plate dimensions, number of anchor rods, anchor rod diameters and gage distances, and taper of the column sections.application/pdfengThe author of this work is the copyright owner. UH Libraries and the Texas Digital Library have their permission to store and provide access to this work. Further transmission, reproduction, or presentation of this work is prohibited except with permission of the author(s).Base plateStiffnessPinnedSteelColumnLow-riseMetal buildingsConnectionWeb tapered2016-08-28Thesisborn digital