Experimental study of cover-plate bolted joints with large or slotted holes

Edouard Cavène , Sébastien Durif (1) , Abdelhamid Bouchaïr (1) , Evelyne Toussaint (2)

1 IP - Institut Pascal
2 IP - Institut Pascal

Connections in steel structures are of main importance in the design process. Cover-plate connections with circular or slotted holes are of common use in steel structures. The behavior of such connections is characterized by various failure modes. Bearing mode is one of the most complex due to the distribution of stresses and strain around the loaded holes. This paper deals with the characterization of the behavior of cover-plate bolted joints with slotted holes. Numerical simulations using the Cast3M FE package are performed in association with an original experimental method based on full-field measurements. The strain fields obtained with these methods (grid method and Digital Image Correlation (DIC)) give the possibility to observe the evolution of the local deformations in the loaded zones of the connections. These evolutions are compared to those given by the Finite Element model for each configuration at different loadings stages. Thus, the experimental results are used to validate the numerical model. The comparisons are based on the load-displacement curves, the failure modes and the local deformations in the zones around the bolts holes. Six different geometrical parameters of the holes and their positions are considered in the tests. The validated numerical model is used to evaluate the influences of the dimensions of the slotted hole. The results showed that the geometry has a significant influence on the failure mode of the connections such as net section and bearing. Both numerical and experimental results are compared to those given by the analytical approach of Eurocode 3 to evaluate the accuracy of the analytical prediction. The study shows the influence of various geometrical parameters on the resistance and the failure mode of the connections with slotted holes. The strain fields obtained with the grid method and DIC are observed in the plate around the bolt in the elastic and plastic phases. They give the possibility to observe experimentally the evolution of strains in a wide area of the most stressed zones in order to develop more accurate analytical models based on experimental evolutions of strains.

Mots clés: experimental tests; cover-plate joints; grid method; numerical model; Eurocode 3

Domaines: Mécanique des solides [physics.class-ph]; Matériaux; Structures; Matériaux composites et construction

Edouard Cavène, Sébastien Durif, Abdelhamid Bouchaïr, Evelyne Toussaint. Experimental study of cover-plate bolted joints with large or slotted holes. EUROSTEEL 2017 (8th European Conference on Steel and Composite Structures), Sep 2017, Copenhagen, Denmark. ⟨hal-01657714⟩