Effect of Bolt Slippage and Joint Eccentricity on the Response of Lattice Structure with Non-Uniform Settlement

Abstract

Lattice transimission towers are commonly made of angles bolted together directly or through gussets. And angle members are usually subjected to high axial force with eccentricity. Conventional structural analysis softwares solve such problems with the assumption of regarding the bolted connection as a rigid joint connection and ignored the effect of joint eccentricity. Thus the calculated internal forces of the structure members are bigger than those of real measurements, and the calculated structure deformation are smaller than the experimental ones under the same load. The main reasons for the discrepancy between the experimental results and the analytical solutions are bolt slippage and joint eccentricity. In this paper, the displacement-load curves of the bolted connections are introduced into the finite element simulation, revealing the effect of bolt slippage on the static response of lattice structure. The simulation results show that the bolt slippage causes the redistribution of the member internal forces of the lattice structure and increases the displacement of the lattice structure. The proposed algorithm and simulation results would provide good reference for further engineering applications.