Experimental and numerical model for space steel and composite semi-rigid joints

An experimental investigation was made to study the behaviour of space steel and composite semi-rigid joints. The effect of loading from the minor direction on the main direction of semi-rigid joints was considered. Five full-scale tests were performed on semi-rigid space steel and composite extended endplates joints. A three-dimensional finite element model is proposed using ANSYS software for the analytical investigation. A comparative study between the present numerical model and the experimental results is presented to establish the validity of the proposed model. Also, an application was made on space frame to show the effect of joint rigidity using a beam-element model and this was verified with previous studies.