EXPERIMENTAL STUDY ON BEHAVIOR OF THE GUSSET-PLATE JOINT OF ALUMINUM ALLOY PORTAL FRAME

"The aluminum alloy portal frames are increasingly being used for lightweight building construction. This paper investigated the flexural behavior of the bolted gusset-plate joint applied in the beam-beam connection of aluminum alloy portal frames. Bending tests were conducted on 3 aluminum alloy bolted gusset-plate joints. The failure phenomenon indicated that the thin plate joint failed by the buckling of gusset plates, while the thick plate joint failed by the buckling of sleeves. The momentrotation curves showed that thickening the gusset plate can effectively prevent the buckling of gusset plates and increase the flexural capacity and bending stiffness of joints. In addition, the longitudinal spacing of bolts has a significant influence on the joint stiffness but has no obvious influence on the bearing capacity of the joint. The stress on the two gusset plates of the joint was uneven, which led to the decline of bearing performance of thin plate joints."