Influence of clearance and type for bolt holes on mechanical behavior of bearing-type bolted FRP connection

Abstract

Bolted connection is a common connection method for FRP structures and it has the advantages of economy, convenience of construction, easy to replace and so on. It is found that the seismic performance of bolted FRP connection depends on the size and form of bolt hole. In order to study the influences of clearance and type for bolt holes on mechanical behavior of bearing-type high-strength fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) bolted connection, 14 specimens with type of round and slotted hole, and different bolt-hole clearance were studied under monotonic tension loading based on ABAQUS software. The analysis result showed that the connection stiffness decreased when the bolt-hole was enlarged with round hole, while the failure mode and ultimate bearing capacity were changed slightly either by the hole types or bolt-hole clearance and are negligible. This is beneficial and provides a reference for engineers to adopt different connection forms for FRP structures according to the specific situation of seismic requirements in engineering practice.