Abstract
The difficulty in connecting Glass Fibre Reinforced Polymer (GFRP) composites to each other limits its applications in many situations due to the absence of proper connection mechanisms. This research deals with joining two GFRP box sections by employing steel hollow section and go-through bolts in which bond length and bolt configuration were used as the parameters. An experimental model was assembled, and a compression test was carried out for validation. Finite element (FE) models were developed, and analyses were carried out in ANSYS 19.2 Workbench. The connections' load-displacement behaviour, stress distribution, and failure modes were evaluated under axial compression and tension. By analysing the obtained results, the influence of bond length and bolt configuration was studied, and the number of bolts was the most crucial parameter. The performance of the modelled samples was compared with that of a model of GFRP members without connection. The sample with a 100 mm bond length and four go-through bolts was adopted as the optimum connection after analysing and comparing its performance to a sample of GFRP with no connection. Even though the load-carrying capacity of the connection increases with the number of bolts, an optimum connection is chosen by comparing it with a sample of GFRP with no connection, so that the connection with comparable member and joint strength can be chosen.
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