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A review is presented of the tests undertaken to characterize bolted joints (no adhesive bonding) for pultruded fibre-reinforced plastic (PFRP) structural shapes and systems. The review is written with regard to the appraisal of existing connection design procedures for plate-to-plate bolted joints. It is shown that 15 uncoordinated series of tests on single-bolt and multi-bolt double lap joints provide 800 ultimate strength results. Each of the series of tests had different objectives and so different joint variables were studied. This reflects the current state of guidance on joint design and installation in pultruders' design manuals and elsewhere, which is shown to be limited and inconsistent.By rationalizing the number of variables the authors have tested a further 900 joints in order to generate a larger database of strengths and modes of failure, which may be used to appraise connection design procedures, such as the Hart-Smith and EUROCOMP Design Code and Handbook simplified and rigorous methods. Observations are made on the findings from 16 series of tests with respect to the current state of design of PFRP plate-to-plate bolted joints.

SUMMARYThis paper addresses the development of the DXDR method by introducing a modified fictitious time (MFT) increment. The MFT is determined by minimizing the residual force after each iteration. The rank of the convergence rate shows the advantage of the new method. The results obtained from plate and truss analyses demonstrate the potential of the new method. It is shown that, compared with a unit fictitious time, the MFT is more efficient, especially during the initial iterations. Moreover, MFT does not impose any additional constraints on the DXDR method.