ANALYTICAL PREDICTION OF THE BEARING RESISTANCE OF BOLTED CONNECTIONS FOR TUBULAR RACKING STRUCTURES

The aim of this paper is to provide a formulation able to predict the resistance of simple shear connections realized by fastening a plate to a hollow square section by means of long bolts. The research is motivated by the fact that the rules currently provided by EC3 for defining the bearing resistance of steel connections are limited to the case of stacks of plates, where every plate composing the connection is always restrained out of plane by the adjoining plate or by the bolt head or nut. This is a condition not verified in case of connections realized with long bolts fastening hollow sections. The work is organized in two sections. First, the results of an experimental campaign are presented and successively, the results of a parametric analysis carried out by means of a Finite Element model calibrated on the experimental data are reported. Afterwards, an analytical approach able to include the local buckling effects arising in these kinds of connections is presented, proposing a coefficient for the reduction of the resistance, to be included in the EC3 formulation.