Behaviour of SHS brace-H-shaped chord T-joints under cyclic in-plane bending

The behaviour of square hollow section (SHS) brace-H-shaped chord T-joints under cyclic in-plane bending was investigated using experimental and finite element (FE) analyses. Six specimens were tested. The test parameters were the section dimension of the brace and the setting of transverse stiffeners at the brace/chord connection. Failure modes, moment resistances, rotational stiffness, rotation capacity and energy dissipation of the T-joints were evaluated. It was also found that failure modes of the specimens are consistent with the prediction in Eurocode 3. The FE software ABAQUS was then used to simulate the joint specimens, and the extended finite element method (XFEM) was adopted to study the effect of crack development on the hysteretic behaviour of the joints. The FE method accurately predicted the stress distribution, hysteretic curves, backbone curves and locations of the cracks, thus validating its accuracy. A parametric study was subsequently conducted to investigate the influence of the geometric parameters β, γ, τ, n and ξ on the hysteretic performance of the T-joints in detail.