Structural behavior of cold-formed stainless steel bolted connections

This paper presents a series of tests on cold-formed stainless steel bolted connections. The test specimens were fabricated from three different types of stainless steel, including austenitic stainless steel EN1.4301 (AISI 304) and EN1.4571 (AISI 316Ti having small amount of titanium) as well as lean duplex stainless steel EN1.4162 (AISI S32101). The material properties of the three types of stainless steel were determined by tensile coupon tests. Stainless steel single shear and double shear bolted connections with different bolt diameter and bolt arrangement were tested. Two main failure modes were observed in the bolted connection tests, namely the bearing and net section tension failures. The test strengths were compared with the nominal strengths calculated using the American Specification, Australian/New Zealand Standard and European codes for stainless steel structures. It is shown that the nominal strengths predicted by these specifications are generally conservative. Furthermore, the failure modes observed from the tests were also compared with the failure modes predicted by the specifications. It is shown that the failure modes predicted by the European codes are more accurate than the American and Australian/New Zealand predictions.