ABSTRACT
Very little research has been carried out into the factors affecting the strength of overlapping K- joints in circular hollow section (CHS) tubular members. This paper reports the first phase of a parametric Finite Element (FE) study into the strength of such joints under axial loading. Having validated and calibrated the numerical models against gap and overlapped K-joint test results, the relationship between the strength and the overlap amount was then established. The strength of the joints has been found to depend heavily on the boundary conditions used. Further studies investigated the effects of the absence or presence of the hidden weld and the loading hierarchy. Altering the joint geometry, which changed the failure mode, was also found to affect the strength-overlap relationship.
