ABSTRACT
1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Tubular joints Tubular sections have been increasingly used these recent decades for their versatile behavior under different combined states. Their versatility is particularly interesting for high-rise structures, where no formwork is required to speed up the construction schedule. Despite these evident advantages, tubular construction shows a clear disadvantage in terms of cost and difficulty of executing rigid or semi-rigid joints. This difficulty comes from the fact that the most reliable technology to solve these joints is by welding (by cutting the tubes in quartic curves generally). This would be not a problem if all joints could be done at workshop; however, this is not always possible and welding at the worksite leads to a much lower reliability.
