Behaviour of Extended End Plate Long Bolted Moment Connections in Cold Formed Steel Tubular Frames

Abstract

Connection details majorly contribute to the performance of cold formed steel tubular newlineframed structures. Designers and manufacturers prefer bolted joints in beam-column newlineconnections than welds due to its simplicity in installation. However, connecting newlinetubular section members directly to each other by bolting would be difficult because newlinethe free access is possible only on the outer face of the sections. In such situations, the blind bolted connections between tubular beam and column sections would be newlineeffective by means of additional plates that are welded with the connected members at their end. In the recent past the blind bolts are replaced with long bolts in the tubular beam-column connections due to its improved resistance and stiffness of the joint. Also the columns in the connections can be filled with concrete for additional strength and stiffness. The objective of this study is to investigate the moment-rotation behaviour of the extended end plate long bolted moment connection using numerical, experimental and theoretical approaches. Totally thirty six models of the cold formed steel beam-column (hollow and concrete filled column) connections with different arrangement of long bolts are created and analysed using the finite element software ANSYS APDL. The size of beam and columns are RHS 50 x 100 x 2 mm with length 700 mm and 900mm, respectively. The thickness of the section is 2.0 mm. The end plate size is 100 mm x 150 mm x 2.5 mm / 4.0 mm and 6 mm diameter long bolts are used to connect the members in the joint.