Experimental Investigation on Flange Bolted-Welded Connection for Steel Frame

Abstract—This paper proposes a new type of splice joint, named flange bolted-welded hybrid joint, which is designed to splice I-shape beam to facilitate the construction of industrialized buildings. The flange, welded with the bottom beam flange as well as the web close to bottom flange, are jointed by high strength bolts. Stiffening plate is welded at top of the flange while downhand welding and high strength friction grip bolts are used for the top beam flange and the beam web, respectively. The connection reduces the construction period and costs. In this paper, monotonic and reversed cyclic loading tests were conducted on three full-scale specimens of this innovative joint, to investigate its load-bearing capacity, energy-dissipating capacity and failure modes. The results indicate that the joint has high load-bearing capacity and great ductility. The failure mode is due to the slippage of flange bolts as well as the gap development between the two flange plates. The experimental studies enabled improvement of the design of the connection to be used in moment-resisting steel frame structures. Keywords-flange bolted-welded hybrid joint; monotonic testp; cyclic test; finite element analysis I