Metals (Sep 2017)
Analytical Investigation of the Cyclic Behavior of Smart Recentering T-Stub Components with Superelastic SMA Bolts
Abstract
Partially restrained (PR) bolted T-stub connections have been widely used in replacement of established fully restrained (FR) welded connections, which are susceptible to sudden brittle failure. These bolted T-stub connections can permit deformation, easily exceeding the allowable limit without any fracture because they are constructed with a design philosophy whereby the plastic deformation concentrates on bolt fasteners made of ductile steel materials. Thus, the PR bolted connections take advantage of excellent energy dissipation capacity in their moment and rotation behavior. However, a considerable amount of residual deformation may occur at the bolted connection subjected to excessive plastic deformation, thereby requiring additional costs to recover the original configuration. In this study, superelastic shape memory alloy (SMA) bolts, which have a recentering capability upon unloading, are fabricated so as to solve these drawbacks, and utilized by replacing conventional steel bolts in the PR bolted T-stub connection. Instead of the full-scale T-stub connection, simplified T-stub components subjected to axial force are designed on the basis of a basic equilibrium theory that transfers the bending moment from the beam to the column and can be converted into equivalent couple forces acting on the beam flange. The feasible failure modes followed by corresponding response mechanisms are taken into consideration for component design with superelastic SMA bolts. The inelastic behaviors of such T-stub components under cyclic loading are simulated by advanced three-dimensional (3D) finite element (FE) analysis. Finally, this study suggests an optimal design for smart recentering T-stub components with respect to recentering and energy dissipation after observing the FE analysis results.
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