ABSTRACT
This paper presents a numerical investigation on static strength of high strength steel X-joints composed of circular hollow sections (CHS) with nominal steel yield stresses of 700 and 900 MPa. The adopted material models were based on previous research and the parametric study covered a wide range of parameters including brace to chord outer diameter ratio, chord outer diameter to wall thickness ratio, angle between brace and chord members, brace to chord wall thickness ratio, and chord preload ratio. The static strengths obtained from the numerical study were compared with those calculated from nominal strength equations on which the design equations in Eurocode EN 1993-1-8 and CIDECT design guide are based. The comparison study assessed the applicability of the nominal strength equations for CHS X-joints using S700 and S900 steel. This paper reports the observations and findings of this pilot numerical study.
