An investigation on newly developed THH connector

摘要

Connectors are usually used for connection of various elements of space grid structures. Although, the types of connectors have evolved over the past few decades, these connectors may involve higher cost of fabrication owing to their complex geometry. To address this problem, the present study proposes a new type of connector, Truncated Hexahedron (THH) connector, which can be created by truncating the corners of a cubical solid. Finite element method (FEM) has been used to carry out theoretical analysis and to obtain the stresses in the connector. The THH connector has also been modelled and analyzed using ANSYS software and the results have been compared with FEM results. Further, a double layer grid has been studied for different magnitudes of vertical loading and the various joint locations (considering THH connector at these joints) have been analyzed in ANSYS software, for the member forces obtained from analysis of a double layer grid. It has been observed that the connector at support location would be the critical connector for design of connectors for a double layer grid. The THH connector introduced in this study, due to ease of fabrication, owing to its uncomplicated geometry, promises to be an alternative option for connection of elements of double or multilayer space grid structures.