Study on seismic performance of fully bolted joints

Conventional steel box-section column connections are welded onsite, high labor cost, poor seismic performance, and environmental air pollutions. In view of the above questions,the core tube flange connection structure is proposed in this paper.A core tube is arranged inside the column and is connected between the upper and lower columns by flange plates and high-strength bolts.The technique is efficiently assembled and environmentally friendly. Based on the previous research, tapping bolts are added to improve the joint stiffness and bearing capacity. High-fidelity finite-element models are established. The feasibility and correctness of the finite element method are verified by comparison with the experimental structure.A comparative study is carried out on the TFBC with respect to the traditional box-section column connections utilizing finite element models. The research effectively demonstrates that the proposed TFBC has sufficient stiffness, desired loading capacity, and favourable rigid performance and TFBC has similar mechanical properties to welding joint.