Research on Ultimate Bearing Capacity of Combo Steel Tube Tower Joint

The steel tube-angle connections have widely used in electric transmission towers. However, there is no technical information regarding the behavior of the connections, and it is lack of effective design of rational basis. Thus, a analytical parametric study was conducted to investigate the behavior of tube-angle connections.The analytical results were in good agreement with existing experimental results.The effects of eccentric loads and parameter change on the ultimate strength were considered. And the analytical results show that ultimate capacity of eccentric loads were significantly lower than that of the axis loads, and the ultimate load of tube-angle connections increases linearly with the thickness of the gusset plate. Besides this,diameter/thickness ratios have an effect on the capacity. In addition,as the distance between the angle end and the steel tube increases, the ultimate strength becomes lower.