| This paper studies the finite element prediction of fracture initiation in bolted structural steel connections using damage mechanics. A material failure envelope has previously been developed for aluminum extrusions using the IDS (instability, ductile, and shear) criterion. The IDS criterion is a damage mechanics based model for defining failure envelopes. These failure envelopes are adjusted to match first fracture in three different common steel connection components comprising a total of five different materials. This includes bars of A36 and A588, T-sections of A992, and bolts of A325 and A490 material. Components were tested in uniaxial tension and/or shear and found to match favorably with experimental results. Four full scale beam-to-column connections were modeled using the failure envelopes developed from the components to verify the procedure. These included two bolted T-stub connections and two top-and-seat angle connections. Load-displacement curves for the full scale models were found to coincide with experimental results. |
