Analytical behaviour of CFDST chord to CHS brace composite K-joints: Fid-Bau Portal

Analytical behaviour of CFDST chord to CHS brace composite K-joints

Hou, Chao / Han, Lin-Hai

AbstractConcrete filled double-skin steel tubular (CFDST) members have been adopted as electrical poles in China and are having increasing utilization in trusses, bridges and lattice structures. Besides previous research work on the structural performance of individual CFDST components and the experimental results on CFDST joints reported by the authors in the companion paper (Hou and Han, 2016), up until now there is little understanding on the detailed analytical behaviour of typical connections formed by such composite members. This paper thus presents a finite element analysis (FEA) on composite K-joints formed by CFDST chords and circular hollow section (CHS) braces. The FEA modelling was validated by the reported test data and then used to perform analysis on multiple types of possible failure modes, full-range load-deformation relations, and material interactions along the cross-sections of such new type of composite joints. Comparative analysis and parametric analysis was also performed, based on which simplified formulae for calculating the strength of CFDST K-joints were presented and validated.

Highlights•We presented finite element analysis model on CFDST K-joints subjected to static loading.•We investigated possible failure modes and conducted full-range analysis of CFDST K-joints under static loading.•We proposed simplified prediction methods for the strength of CFDST K-joints under static loading.