Experimental research and nonlinear finite element analysis for the structural behaviors of single shear test on bolted connections fabricated with cold-formed stainless steel have been conducted. Failure criteria for prediction of failure mode of bolted connections under static shear and out-of-plane deformation, i.e., curling criteria were proposed based on experimental data for calibration of FE modeling. Failure mode and ultimate strength predicted by recommended FEA procedures with solid element showed a good correspondence with those of previous test results and the validation of FEA method was verified. The previous numerical analyses of bolted connection were carried out on geometrically perfect specimens. However, it has been known that geometric imperfection of thin-walled members must be considered in a FE model to simulate the actual shape of specimen. Therefore, in this paper, parametric studies were carried out based on the validity of numerical modeling of bolted connections in cold-formed stainless steel so that authors investigated the influence of initial geometric imperfection of connected plate on its structural behavior. Solid element and shell element with reduced integration were introduced as an element type and included two types of geometric imperfection. Consequently, FE modeling technique of cold-formed stainless steel bolted connection introducing initial imperfection to compensate the function of shell element and to induce the curling was proposed.KEY WORDS: initial geometric imperfection; cold-formed steel; bolted connection; finite element analysis; curling.imperfection obtained from actual measurement and eigenvalue buckling analysis. 13) B. W. Schafer et al. employed a superposition of the minimum local buckling mode and minimum distorsional buckling mode for the imperfection shape in FE modeling (shell element, S9R5) of thin-walled steel members subject to uniform compressive load.14) Furthermore, T. Wilkinson et al. introduced geometric imperfections into FE model (shell element, S4R5) on coldformed RHS beams. 15) Consequently, with respect to buckling of cold-formed steel members, the above mentioned researchers employed the reduced integration shell element, especially in three dimensional FE analyses, which reveal that the FE model simulated by a shell element with geometric imperfection provides accurate FEA results and also the model is helpful to reduce analysis time compared to that of solid element type.Since initial geometric imperfection in FE modeling of single shear test on bolted connections fabricated from thin-walled steel has rarely been considered so far, this paper aims to introduce a shell element with initial imperfection into FE modeling of bolted connections so as to obtain time efficient analysis results and induce the curling behavior observed from both experimental results 6,8)
Existing Test Results and Finite Element Analysis
Test Specimens and ResultsExperimental research of two types of bolted connections: single shear and double shear test on bol...