Experimental investigation on the instability phenomenon in stainless steel connections-plate curling

Abstract

The overlap bolted steel connection with thin-plates can be subjected to the occurrence of the phenomenon known as curling effect, which is able to influence the global behavior and decrease its ultimate strength. For stainless steel joints, the mechanism is even more important, because it is a material with high deformation capacity. Therefore, both experimental tests and numerical analyses are presented in this paper in order to investigate the influence of curling effect in overlap bolted connection. In addition, the lips were also studied because they increase the stiffness for the out-plane displacement. The outcomes shown that the curling effect reduced the ultimate bearing resistance. Comparing the actual codes, the design load provided by they are lower than those are obtained in both experimental and numerical tests. In addition, it can be reported the efficiency from the lips for the ferritic overlap connection.