TENSILE CAPACITY OF STEEL PLATE CONNECTIONS WITH DIFFERENT BOLT DISTRIBUTION DUE TO TENSILE LOAD

The use of bolted connections in the steel plate is an essential element in steel constructions as they are directly affecting the design of the steel sections, especially under the influence of tensile load. There are two types of bolts distribution in the connections: linear or staggered distribution, which depends on the number of bolts and the width of the steel section. The presence of the holes has an impact on the mechanical response of the steel structure. The objective of this paper is an experimental studying of the behaviour of net section tension capacity of steel plates with different types of bolted distribution under the axial tension force. To achieve this, the experimental tests were carried out on nine specimens to be used to investigate the effect of this condition and test the accuracy of current design codes. Experimental testing shows that the critical net section area is not always the smallest width but depends on the shape of the bolt's distribution, and the staggered distribution is often the critical section even if it is the longest in terms of net width. The efficiency of the shape of the bolts in a linear distribution affected the increase in the stress capacity of the steel plates, but in staggered bolts distribution, the stress reduction rate in the yielding and maximum ultimate stresses phase equals to 9.43% and 17.33% respectively. It can be concluded that the current design codes such as AISC and Eurocode-3 calculations of the ultimate stress capacities of linear bolts distribution are applicable and have some factor of safety. Nevertheless, on the other side, the codes calculations of the ultimate stress capacities of staggered bolts distribution are unsuitable for our case study and need a reduction coefficient at least equal to 0.744 just to get the actual stress of steel plate.