Non-linear analysis of botlted flush endplate steel beam-to-column connections

Abstract

In the typical steel building construction, steel connections are playing a crucial part in the construction to connect two different members into a desired length as specified by the architect. In modern building industry, it is a challenge for design engineers to provide simple steel connections to aid the construction sequence as most connections required by modern architecture is often complex. It was a common practice for design engineers to design steel connection to behave within the elastic zone of the stress-strain curve. However, this approach does not utilize the capacity of the steel members as well as component within a steel connection as compared to non-linear analysis. Referring to the design standard available locally, design engineers still lack a simple method, formula, or information provided by the codes to carry out preliminary prediction on the effect of the simple steel connection in the non-linear stage. This paper reports the study of non-linear analysis of bolted flush end plate to steel beam-to-column connection by using finite element analysis. Parametric study was carried out to determine the effect of plate thickness and number of bolt on the structural capacity of the connection. Graphs to aid design engineers to assess the nonlinear behaviour of steel connection without a need for detail calculations are plotted from the analysis results.