ON THE EFFECTS OF CIRCULAR BOLT PATTERNS ON THE ...

CHAPTER 6
6. DISCUSSION OF THE RESULTS
6.1 Introduction
A parametric study was conducted to identify the effects of the connection geometric parameters on
the performance of connections with circular bolt pattern. More than one hundred and eighty finite
element models of eight bolt extended end-plate connections with various end-plate thicknesses and bolt
diameters including both square and circular pattern are analyzed under cyclic loading. Since studying
the behavior of each model, 182 models, and the compression of the results are a time consuming and
ineffective task, the researcher decided to carefully sample the models and only discuss the behavior of
these models. These models are sampled such that their behavior best represent the overall behavior of
the entire test matrix. Sixteen models from the connections with 30 in. nominal beam depth are selected
and the results were discussed. Similar behavior was observed when the results of the models with 24 in.
and 36 in. were studied. The discussions of these results are provided in this chapter. The details of the
sampled specimens are shown in Table 6-1.
Also for a better representation of the bolt forces and their variation in the connections with circular
and square bolt pattern, the selected models are subjected to monotonic loading to the failure. The
discussion of these results and the effect of the circular bolt pattern on the bolt force variation in the
connection are discussed in details in this chapter.
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