Experimental and numerical study on the T-Stub behaviour with preloaded bolts under large deformations

The bolts and their arrangement strongly influence stiffness, strength and ductility of T-Stub connections. Preloaded bolts are typically adopted to improve the stiffness and limit the opening of the connection under serviceability conditions. EN1993-1-8 allows using two types of high resistance preloaded bolts, namely the German HV (acronym of Hochfeste Bolzen mit Vorspannung, which is the German for High Resistance bolts for pretension and the British/French HR (acronym of High Resistance) without making any distinction. However, the tensile failure modes of these bolts are different (i.e. nut stripping for HV and shank necking for HR) and may affect the ultimate tensile response of the T-Stub connections with weak bolts (e.g. failure mode type 2 and 3). Furthermore, despite the effects of geometrical non-linearities at large deformations are not specifically addressed in current codes, the membrane action developing in the flange and the shear force and bending moment in the bolt may influence the reserve of ductility of the T-Stub that plays an important role in case of seismic and robustness scenarios. In addition, the presence of initial imperfections (e.g. the misalignment of the web as respect to the bolts and the flange bowing) can influence the non-linear behaviour of the connection. The influence of all these aspects on resistance and ductility of T-Stub connections are investigated by means of both experimental monotonic tests and parametric finite element analyses. On the basis of the obtained results, design rules are discussed with the aim to guarantee extra ductility of T-Stub connections.