Study On Energy Dissipation Of Splice Joints In Steel Structures

In steel frame structure, high-strength bolted splice connections in beams and braces are often used when the lengths of members are limited by transportation or erection. In order to utilize the aseismic superiority of this kind of connections, high-strength bolted splice connections can be designed that the connections will not slip under wind load and small to moderate earthquakes, while bolts slip under severe earthquakes. In such a way, quake energy can be dissipated, so that seismic response of the main structure will be reduced.In order to study the energy dissipation performance of high-strength bolted splice joints and to explore the possibility of making such joints to be used as energy dissipation joints. Low circle cyclic loading test of twelve such specimens were carried out, particular attention was paid to the study of fatigue and energy dissipation performance of these specimens. Influencing factors, such as fying surface treatment, frictional plates, flexure or yield of splicing plate, etc. are studied in these tests. Results showed that: high-strength bolted splice connections under cyclic loading has full hysteresis loops, and showing capable of dissipating significant quantities of energy; spring washers should not be used in splice connections under dynamic load; with sand-blasted or inorganic zinc painted, sliding load of joint is unstable and have a large difference between initial load and steady load; The splicing joint with brass shims have a stable performance of energy dissipation; The reduced splicing plate sections is bad to the safety of structure which easy to be broken under cyclic reversed loading, so it should not make use of flexure of splicing plate to dissipate energy.Then a thorough computer modeling using finite element program with material, geometry and state triple-nonlinear taken into account is carried out on a series of influencing factors, such as the shape of holes of splicing joint, splicing space, quantity, diameter, distance of bolts, thickness of splicing plate. Lots of useful conclusions are drawn from computer modeling. Results showed that slotted bolted splice connection have a good capability of dissipating energy than round splice connection; Changing the distance between bolts of both sides of splice connection have a little influence on dissipating energy; For slotted splice connection, the scheme of minor diameter and more bolts can enhance the capable of dissipating energy when the bearing capacity is fixed.