Shear behavior of lap connection using one-side bolts

Abstract

Experimental and numerical investigations on the basic shear behaviors of the lap connections connected by the threaded-fixed one-side bolts were presented. The threaded-fixed one-side bolt in the connection was clamped by internal threads on the wall of a bolt hole, instead of the traditional nut. 36 test specimens with different thicknesses of screwed shear plate and different bolt pre-tension forces were conducted. The failure mode of the shear connection obtained from tests were perfectly consistent with those predicted by EC3-1-8 design equations and the ultimate shear predicted resistance was conservative compared with the test result, both of which differed by 4.6%. A finite element model was built and verified to further investigate effects of the thickness of base plate and the bolt diameter on the shear behavior of the lap connection. The simulated results concluded that the bolt would tilt if the thickness of base plate was smaller than the bolt diameter. The lap connection using the threaded-fixed one-side bolts and the traditional bolts with nut were compared. Difference in the ultimate shear resistance is 0.24% as only the bolt shear fracture failure occurred, however, difference in the ultimate shear resistance is 2.5% as the bolt shear fracture accompanied by the bolt tilting occurred. This paper proved that the screwed shear plate could replace the traditional nut in engineering applications.