Influence of bearing coefficient in cold-formed stainless steel bolted connection

Abstract

The connections play an important role in the overall behaviour of the structures. Therefore an adequate structural design taking into account both safe and economic criterion is necessary. The structural design of stainless steel bolted connections using actual codes can provide inadequate design capacity mainly due to the use of similar rules based on analogies from mild carbon structures. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to evaluate the structural response of stainless bolted connections considering the steel grade austenitic 304. Experimental and numerical analyses have been carried out considering bolted connection under bearing failure. In details, the study cases were subjected to two shear planes with thin-plate and thick-plate. In these cases, the occurrence of curling failures is possible. A detailed study involving the geometric parameters adopted by design equations of bolted stainless steel connections was made. The outcomes showed a reduction of the ultimate capacity characterised by out-plane deformation. In addition, the current codes led to significant difference when compared to both experimental and numerical results.