STATIC DESIGN OF THERMAL INSULATING STEEL CONNECTIONS

According to the increasing requirements of energy efficiency of buildings the new type of thermal insulating joint has been developed. The bolted end-plate connection of steel structures with the intermediate insulating layer will break the thermal bridges in the external cladding. The insulating layer in the connection has not only the insulating function but also the bearing function to transfer the internal forces appearing in the joint. The new technical plastics with sufficient compression and shear resistance are suitable for the thermal insulating layer on load. As a design method the component method seems to be proper. After testing the new component "insulating layer in compression" the description of the whole joint can be calculated from the partial component characteristics. The experiments have been done with the new component as well as with the whole joint and have shown a good agreement with the calculated values. The design of the thermal insulating joint is using the component method as the design of common steel joints, with a simple modification for the new component. The new solution for the thermal insulating joint is statically functional, easy to design, energy saving and economically efficient.