Shear capacity of corroded high-strength bolted connections

The bolted connection is one of the most commonly adopted connection types in steel structures. The high strength bolted connection is always used in important steel structures. Corrosion is inevitable for bolted connections. To clearly reveal the influence of corrosion on the clamping force of high strength bolts, the stochastic numerical model of randomly corroded bolt connections is established. The whole corrosion process can be simulated through the established stochastic numerical model. The influences of uniform corrosion and random corrosion are analyzed. The change rule of clamping force along with mass loss ratio is analyzed. The random distribution of clamping force corresponding to specific mass loss ratio of bolt head is clarified. The probabilistic distribution of clamping force of randomly corroded bolts is revealed. The simplified numerical model of bolt group connection is proposed. The stochastic numerical analysis can be performed based on this simplified model. The results indicated that it is unsafe if the random pitting corrosion is simplified as uniform corrosion. The corrosion location has obvious on the changing rule of residual clamping force.