4 D.A, Nethercot and J.S. Hensman investigations. Several of the findings therefore have relevance to potential improvements in the WMM for bare steel frames. This paper covers: appraisal of the basic source data, outline of the numerical studies, presentation of the key findings and an indication of the resulting design approach. This last item will be presented in a fashion suitable for direct use by designers in a forthcoming Steel Construction Institute Design Guide KEY FEATURES OF THE WIND MOMENT METHOD ‘The approach was originally devised in the pre-computer era, when overall structural analysis of unbraced frames represented an extremely challenging and potentially tedious task. It therefore sought an acceptable simplification so that the labour involved in the structural analysis might be minimised. This was achieved by recognising that some simplification in the representation of the actual behaviour would be necessary. Although it is now quite widely accepted that the true behaviour of all practical forms of beam to column connection in steel and concrete construction function in a semi-rigid and partial strength fashion — with the ideals of pinned and rigid only occasionally being approached — early methods of structural analysis could only cater for one or other of these ideals. Thus the basic WMM uses the principle of superposition to combine the internal moments and forces obtained from a gravity load analysis that assumes all beams to be simply supported and a wind load analysis that assumes beam to column connections to be rigid with points of contraflexure at the mid-span of the beams and the mid-height of the columns as illustrated in Figure 1. This second assumption permits use of the so-called portal method of frame analysis. Once it became possible to conduct full range analyses of steel frames allowing for material and geometrical non-linear effects and including realistic models of joint behaviour, studies were undertaken to assess the actual performance of frames designed according to the WMM principles. The findings permitted observations to be made of the two key behavioural measures: © That the load factor at ultimate was satisfactory ‘© That drift limits at serviceability were achieved. This second point is of importance because, when estimating sway deflections at working load, the WMM normally involves taking the results of an analysis that assumes rigid connections and then applying a suitable scaling factor. Important contributions in the area of bare steel construction are those of Ackroyd and Gerstle, (1982), Ackroyd, (1987), and Anderson and his co-workers at Warwick, Reading, (1989), Kavianpour, (1990), Anderson, Reading and Kavianpour,(1991) JUMERICAL APPROACH All the numerical work was undertaken using the ABAQUS package. Whilst this contained sufficient functionality to cover many of the necessary behavioural features, three items required particular attention: ‘Representation of the composite beams ‘Representation of composite beam to column connections ‘+ Inclusion of column base effects