Resistance and Elastic Stiffness of RHS "T" Joints: Part II - Combined Axial Brace and Chord Loading

Abstract This paper deals with the behaviour of welded "T" joints between RHS sections submitted to tension brace loading combined with chord axial loading. In the companion paper (part I) a finite element model and a study without axial load in the chord, focusing on the joint behaviour as a function of the significant geometrical variables, were presented. In this part II paper, tension loading on the brace is incremented up to the joint failure, but is combined with different chord load levels in tension or compression, that are kept constant for each case. The same geometries and geometric...