Group combined failure in tension of extended hollo blind bolts using numerical finite element method

Abstract

The structural hollow sections (SHS) have several advantages comparing with the open sections. However, the application of the SHS in the industry is limited due to the traditional bolt connection and cannot be used for the SHS as the inaccessibility to the inside of section. Several blind bolt systems were developed to overcome this problem and the EHB is the modified version of one of the blind bolt systems.This project aims to investigate the behaviour of the Extended Hollo-bolt (EHB) connection under combined failure mode with a focus on the influence of the bolt pitch distance by using test data and Finite Element (FE) models and to propose an analytical model for the connection. The EHB connection is between a SHS column filled with concrete and a beam made of an open section. Two rows of EHB were embedded in concrete filled SHS and tested under tension.FE models were created and validated by tests data and they were used to investigate the aforementioned aims. It is found that pitch distance has a significant influence on the strength of the connection as increase of the pitch distance increases the strength of the connection until a critical value. An analytical model was also proposed for the connection.