Structural Behavior of Composite Material Bolted Connections

Pultruded Fiber Reinforced Polymer (PFRP) composites are widely used now in many corrosive environments. Drilling bolt holes create a high-stress concentration in the base material of the structure and might be the cause of cracks, if not taken into consideration. Damage plays an important role in the analysis of fibre reinforced composite materials. Accurately predicting the initiation, progression, and eventual instability of damage in large composite structures is a task in which the numerical models are developed for the analysis and design. In this book, a finite element model using ANSYS software is developed and a numerical analysis is done to investigate the behavior of beam-column connections of Pultruded Fiber Reinforced Polymer members. A comparison with test results for model validation is explained. A parametric study to study the effect of (bolt diameter, washer external diameter, bolt clamping force and friction coefficient) concerning the joint connecting angles and their stiffeners is presented and discussed. Different useful relations are obtained for this type of connections.