Experimental Investigation of Fillet-Welded Joints Subjected to Out-of-Plane Eccentric Loads

摘要

Current design tables (AISC, 2005) for the strength of fillet-welded joints under out-of-plane eccentric loading do not consider two effects that may potentially impact their accuracy. First, they disregard the contribution of bearing between the two connected plates, and second, they do not incorporate the effect of the root notch on weld ductility and strength. The majority of test data that have governed the development of the design tables were obtained from experiments on lapped-splice connections in which neither of these effects are present. This paper presents data from 60 bending tests on cruciform specimens and ancillary tests to investigate the strength of welded connections with an out-of-plane load eccentricity. These specimens feature connections with three different plate bearing thicknesses (1.25, 1.75 and 2.50 in.), two nominal weld sizes (1/2 in. and 5/16 in.), three load eccentricities (3.0, 5.5 and 8.5 in.) and two filler metal classifications ("non-toughness-rated" E70T-7 and "toughness-rated" E70T7-K2). Three replicate tests are conducted for each parameter set. In addition to the tests conducted as part of this study, the analysis of data includes results from other test programs that feature similar experiments.