Reduced Moment Steel Connection

Seen here is a fully braced moment connection in a hybrid steel and wood structure. After the 1994 Northridge, California and 1995 Kobe, Japan earthquakes, however, fully braced moment connections were determined to be inadequate in resisting the forces generated by earthquakes due to many failures observed in building inspections after the event. Now days, as a result of work done at the University of California at Berkeley and elsewhere, reduced moment beam connections were determined to be a solution. The reduced beam can be seen just to the left of the beam column connection. See here for a brief explanation of how reduced moment connections work.