Abstract

Stainless steel becomes more and more important in construction, particularly due to its highly ductility and strain hardening capacity. However, an experimental study on coverplate joints conducted at the LaMI revealed some limits of actual design rules (EN1993-1-4), especially when considering complex failure modes, such as bearing, that involve large deformations. In this study, a non-linear finite element model reproducing the complex behaviour of cover plate joints is used to distinguish the major parameters influencing the behaviour of these joints. A meta-model based on the quadratic response surface method is built from a large set of results and exploited through a reliability approach allowing to quantify the impacts of the different parameters. The objectives are to assess and enrich the available FÉVRIER 2011 7 calculation methods for stainless steel joints in the objective of reliability level of Eurocodes.

KEYWORDS

stainless steel, joint, bearing, finite elements, reliability.