Steel shear behaviour on bearing strength and failure modes of single-bolt connections

Abstract

This paper presents an experimental and numerical study to investigate the bearing strength and failure modes of single-bolt connections. A total of 24 single-bolt connection specimens with the end and edge distances ranging from 1.0d0 to 3.0d0 were tested. The tensile and shear regions are proposed and defined as the corresponding part of steel plates based on the experimental observations, and it is verified by finite element (FE) model. Then a FE modelling method considering tensile and shear material properties on the corresponding regions is proposed to explore the bearing behaviour of single-bolt connections. Besides, fracture criterion is incorporated into FE models to investigate the relationship between the bearing strength and failure mode of the bolted connections. The bearing strength exceeding 12% overestimation and incorrect failure mode would be obtained using the conventional FE modelling method for bolted connections under shear dominated stress due to steel shear behaviour. For single-bolt connections subjected to different stress states, the proposed method can accurately predict the whole process behaviour of the connection involving the bearing strength, fracture deformation and failure modes. Furthermore, FE and theoretical models are used to reveal the fracture mechanism of bolted connections. The bearing strength obtained based on Teh model shows a better agreement with experimental results within 7% error, and the failure modes of single-bolt connections can be accurately predicted by Teh model and ASIC specification.