Cold-formed steel pallet rack connection: an experimental study

Abstract

Industrial pallet rack systems are made up of three-dimensional structural arrangement using cold-formed steel members. The rack columns (upright) have perforations at prescribed intervals to facilitate the assemblage of beams with end connections. The tabs are used as connections which are engaged into the perforations and are in particular, highly semi-rigid in nature. Due to the diversity of rack systems, connecting member’s stiffness and strength, it is almost impossible to develop a generalised model for analytical predication of the connection stiffness. This paper describes the beam–column connection tests carried out on a commercially available pallet rack system by adopting single cantilever test set-up. Thirty-five sets of combinations are identified based on the variation in upright profile and thickness, depth of beam and the connector to study the connection stiffness. Three tests were performed for each set to bring in uniformity in the result taking the total number of tests to 105. A full range parametric study is carried out to understand the influence of above said parameters on moment–rotation behaviour and the joint stiffness. The experimental results showed that an improved performance of the joint connection is achieved using connectors with more number of tabs, greater thickness and improved profile of the upright and larger depth of the beam.