The strength of beam-to-RHS joints with welded studs

Construction industry is a significant contributor to global warming and other impacts on the environment. Demountable building may be a key to achieve sustainable construction as it facilitates the separation of components and materials for their recovery or even their reuse. However, when designing demountable bolted beam-to-column joints involving IPE-beams and hollow sections columns, difficulties associated with the inaccessibility of the interior of the tube can result in a problem during the execution process. To solve this problem, the use of joints with welded studs is great of interest since threaded studs can be attached to the column face without accessing the inside of the tube. The threaded studs can be used in combination with angle cleats to assembly demountable joints. In this paper, a new component-based analytical model to determine the resistance of beam to column bolted joints is presented. Firstly, analytical equations to calculate the resistance of the studs are proposed. Then their assessment with experimental tests is evaluated. Finally, the analytical strength and failure modes of the full joint are compared with the results obtained in a vast campaign of full-scale experimental tests, including single-side bolted beam-column joints and double-side bolted beam-column joints. The design parameters that govern the resistance of the full joints were also revealed. Drawing on this knowledge, guidelines to the design of joints based on their expected behavior have been proposed.