Net section capacity of high strength steel bolted connections with or without staggered bolts

This paper mainly presents an experimental and numerical investigation of the net section resistance (fuAnet) of bolted connections made using high strength steel (HSS). The main objective of the study is to examine the effect of low tensile strength to yield strength ratio and low ductility of HSS material on the tensile capacity of HSS bolted connections. Two types of HSS material were studied, namely, Q690 and Q960. Each connection was equipped with two lap plates and eight bolts in staggered or unstaggered arrangement and was designed to fail by net section fracture through the staggered or transverse section, respectively. The connection efficiency of each connection, which is the ratio of the ultimate load obtained from tests or FE analysis to net section resistance (fuAnet), was found to be close to 1.0. This indicates that the net section resistance (fuAnet) of the examined HSS bolted connections can be achieved at the ultimate state, where the net section area (Anet) of HSS staggered bolted connections can still be determined by the s2/4g rule.