Investigation of the tube-gusset connection in 600MPA circular hollow section

While the recent high demand for high rising buildings has led to the development of high-performance and high-strength steels, the requirements for structural-performance steel for building have been raised as engineers recognize the potential damage that an earthquake can wreak on a tall building. Many studies on high-strength steels have explored such need, but in case of hollow section, there are not enough experimental data. Appropriate design equations in CHS are needed because the design equations limit the maximum yield strength and yield ratio up to 360MPa and 80% in AISC and Canadian codes, and the design code of KBC 2009. This study was carried out the experiment test on strength of tube-gusset connection. Connections were formed by CHS chord with transverse plate (WH type) and longitudinal plate (LH type), and lateral force was applied on it. To understand the connection behavior and design codes, width of gusset, utilization ratio were selected as the parameters. It was also performed to investigate the behavior and strength of tube-gusset connection through comparing the experimental results and FEA. As the results of FEA using ABAQUS, analytical values almost reached the same results. This study analyzed tube-gusset connection and compared experimental values with analytical values for evaluating the applicability of current design equations. Current design equations were estimated to 67∼128% for WH type, and 61∼107% for LH type by normalized values from analytical values.