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Title

INITIAL STIFFNESS OF REVERSE CHANNEL CONNECTIONS

Authors

Abstract

In fire situations constraining the thermal expansion of beams, results to premature and unpredictable failures. The connection studied in the present paper precisely remedies this particular issue. As present design codes [1,2] provide relatively little information on the behaviour of connections at elevated temperature, this study attempts to quantify the stiffness that the reverse channel (RC) connections (see Fig.1) provides against the free thermal dilation of a beam. Observations made in real fire situations, such as for the collapse of the World Trade Center [3,4] and during a full-scale fire test at Cardington [5] have clearly shown the importance of joints with respect to the robustness. During a fire the structure undergoes essential changes due to degradation of material properties and internal forces, which may change rapidly due to restrained thermal deformations. This connection is particularly applicable for connecting beams to either circular or rectangular (concrete filled) hollow-section columns. The flanges of the channel section are welded to the column face and the channel web is bolted to a conventional endplate on the beam side [6].

References

[1] European Committee for Standardization, 2005. EN 1993-1-8: Eurocode 3 - Design of steel structures, Part 1-8: Design of joints. Brussels.
[2] European Committee for Standardization, 2005. EN 1993-1-2: Eurocode 3 - Design of steel structures, Part 1-2: General rules - Structural fire design
[3] Gann RG, Grosshandler WL, Lew HS, Bukowski RW, Sadek F, Gayle FW, et al., 2008. Federal Building and Fire Safety Investigation of the World Trade Center Disaster: Structural Fire Response and Probable Collapse Sequence of World Trade Center Building 7. Washington.
[4] Federal Emergency Management Authority F, 2002. World Trade Center Building Performance Study. Washington.
[5] Newman GM, Robinson JT, Bailey CG, 2006. Fire safe design: a new approch to multi-storey steel- framed buildings. 2nd ed. Ascot. Steel Construction Institute
[6] Hicks SJ, Newman GM, Edwards M, Orton A, 2002. Design Guide for Concrete Filled Columns. London. Corus Tubes/The Steel Construction Institute
[7] Lopes F, Santiago A, Simões da Silva L, Heistermann T, Veljkovic M, Guilherme da Silva J, 2013. Experimental Behaviour of the Reverse Channel Joint Component at Elevated and Ambient Temperatures. Int J Steel Struct 2013;13:459–72
[8] Heistermann T, 2013. Stiffness of Reverse Channel Connections at Room and Elevated Temperatures. Doctoral Thesis. Luleå University of Technology
[9] Pilkey WD, 2005. Formulas for stress, strain and structural matrices. John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Files

21-361.pdf

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