AN EFFECTIVE 2-DIMENSIONAL NUMERICAL-METHOD FOR THE ANALYSIS OF A CLASS OF STEEL CONNECTIONS

This paper presents a successful method to analyse steel plate connect ions under static loading and to calculate their respective stress sta tes. In particular, the proposed method which is based on the theoreti cal results of a new branch of Mechanics, called Nonsmooth Mechanics, concerns the simulation of the structural behaviour of steel connectio ns in the case that the development of zones of plastification, as wel l as unilateral contact and friction effects on the interfaces between connection members and bolts are taken into account. Within the frame work of the herein proposed method, effective two-dimensional finite e lement models capable to describe plasticity, unilateral contact and f riction effects are constructed; the latter constitute easy-to-use and accurate numerical models for the analysis of steel connections subje cted to static loading. The aforementioned models are simplifications of the respective three-dimensional ones and aim to reduce in a reliab le way the huge computational effort required for the analysis of thre e-dimensional fine meshes of discretized steel connections.