Search

The present investigation studies the load bearing performance of stainless steel bolted connections. The austenitic stainless steel developed in China containing approximately 17% of Cr, which could be graded as EN 1.4401, has been selected for this research. In order to study the bearing strength of stainless steel bolted connections, experimental tests on 5 specimens have been conducted. In addition, complementary finite element (FE) models, which have been validated by the test results, have been adopted to analyse the effect of the key factors for bearing strength of the stainless steel bolted connections. The key factors include end distance, thickness of connecting plate, diameter of stainless steel bolt and edge distance. According to the FEA results, the loading capacity increases with the increase of the thickness of the plate and the diameter of the bolt approximate linearly. However, the end distance and edge distance have a comparatively complicated influence on the loading capacity of the connection. Based on mathematical analysis of the experimental and FEA results, a calculation method as well as its simplified form for the bearing strength of stainless steel bolted connections has been proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of capacity design method (CDM) in steel plate shear wall (SPSW) structures results in large vertical boundary elements (VBEs). One way to reduce the force demands on VBEs is to employ outrigger beams in the adjacent spans of SPSW. In this paper, twelve dual SPSW-moment resisting frames are designed and analyzed by FE method to investigate the effects of outrigger system on the behavior of SPSW structures. Results show that outrigger beams can transfer considerable amount of axial force and bending moment from VBEs to the outer spans columns; resulting in smaller sections for VBEs. In addition, the most effective stories to employ outrigger beams are shown to be the stories which undergo larger drifts. Outrigger system also results in a more uniform distribution of structural stiffness along the height of SPSW frames. Furthermore, a design procedure based on the direct analysis method is proposed for the design of SPSW-Outrigger system. The procedure eliminates the excessive capacities in CDM, while satisfying all CDM requirements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]