Research On Behavior Of Single Cold-Formed Channels Connections

At the present time, it is widespread that members with cold-formed sections are used as the supporting members in portal frames. And all of the columns and beams are adopted in I-shaped compound sections. However, the configuration of the connections and joints will be brevity and simple if the single cold-formed channels are used as the beams and columns. Besides, the transporting and erection of components in the construction will be more convenient and more rapid. But little researches on this aspect have been found in China. Based on the latest experimental study abroad, single cold-formed channels connections have been analyzed in this paper.The finite element program ANSYS 10.0 is applied to carry out the finite element nonlinear analysis of the connections in this article. The most numerical calculating results agree well with the test data. The finite element models verified were used for an extensive parametric study of the eaves which joints considered the geometry and material nonlinearity, the width of the channel flanges, the yield strength of the materials and the diameter of the bolts. The result shows that the width of the channel flanges and the diameter of the bolts have a little influence on the ultimate bearing capacity and the stiffness of the beam to column connections. In contrast, the yield strength has great effect on that.Based on the finite element nonlinear analysis, a formula is proposed in this article. The ultimate bearing capacity can be calculated by use of the formula. The comparison between the calculating results and the numerical calculating results shows that the proposed formula is reasonable.