On the Design of a Steel End-Plate Beam-to-Column Bolted Joint According to PN-EN 1993-1-8

Considering joints with unstiffened columns, the load capacity of an inner bolt-row being a part of bolts group defined by a flange capacity is directly proportional to a distance between bolts. In turn, a flexibility of the column flange in the inner bolt-row area depends not only on that distance but also on a flexibility of other basic joint components. Hence, that situation may occur, when internal forces in inner bolt-row will be greater than its capacity estimated as an equivalent of T-stub. This possibility has been taken into account in the standard [3] - see the rule in the point 6.2.4.2 (3). In practice, this rule is not implemented in calculations of this kind of joints. In this work, a simplified algorithm of these joints calculation as well as an example, where the need for force reduction in the inner bolt-row to the value of bolt resistance has occurred, were presented. Moreover, the influence of the aforementioned reduction on the joint stiffness was estimated