Stress Concentration Factors of Doubler Plate Reinforced Tubular T Joints

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to study the stress concentration factors of doubler plate reinforced tubular T joints subjected to various types of basic loading such as axial tension, axial compression, and in-plane and out-of-plane bending. The finite-element method is adopted in the numerical parametric studies to evaluate the stress distribution. To verify the numerical results, a typical full-scale doubler plate reinforced tubular T joint was fabricated and tested. The strain distributions at the intersection region subjected to various combinations of loading were measured. The results from the experiment compared well with the numerical results. The finite-element modeling techniques were then verified to be accurate and reliable. After the verification, a database was generated from a parametric study by varying some geometrical parameters, such as the wall thickness ratio, diameter ratio, etc. A set of parametric equations with the nondimensional parameters as variables was then established for the evaluation of the stress concentration factors of the doubler plate reinforced tubular T joints. The stress concentration factors on the doubler plate reinforced joints were found lower than the unreinforced joints.