Prediction of moment\u2013rotation characteristic of top- and seat-angle bolted connection incorporating prying action

Abstract

Finite element (FE) analyses were performed to explore the prying influence on moment–rotation behaviour and to locate yielding zones of top- and seat-angle connections in author’s past research studies. The results of those FE analyses with experimental failure strategies of the connections were used to develop failure mechanisms of top- and seat-angle connections in the present study. Then a formulation was developed based on three simple failure mechanisms considering bending and shear deformations, effects of prying action on the top angle and stiffness of the tension bolts to estimate rationally the ultimate moment Mu of the connection, which is a vital parameter of the proposed four-parameter power model. Applicability of the proposed formulation is assessed by comparing moment-rotation (M–θr) curves and ultimate moment capacities with those measured by experiments and estimated by FE analyses and three-parameter power model. This study shows that proposed formulation and Kishi–Chen’s method both achieved close approximation driving M–θr curves of all given connections except a few cases of Kishi–Chen model, and Mu estimated by the proposed formulation is more rational than that predicted by Kishi–Chen’s method.