PART A – Micro-Project Proposal

Types Of Connections Used In Steel Structure

1.0 Brief Introduction

Moment connections are typically designed to also carry the shear component of the load. They
provide continuity between the supported and supporting members. Relative rotation between
the supporting and supported members is negligible. The flanges of the supported member are
attached to either a connection element or directly to the supporting member. Flange plates may
also be required for stability of the column during erection. This plate helps align the upper and
lower columns. The upper and lower columns may be of different sizes. The flanges and webs of
the two columns are field- welded to each other. This type of weld is called a groove weld. In this
paper, a review of other literatures is done on the basis of connections and its importance
according to structural and seismic point of view. One of the most important aspects that one
needs to take into account when designing a steel structure is the dissipative mechanism of the
structure as well as the structural properties of the connection. A manual design can only be done
for connections in steel structures for better understanding.

2.0 Aim of the Micro-Project

The Aim/Benefits of this project is:
 To investigate and document the various types of connections employed in steel
structures
 emphasizing their applications, advantages, disadvantages, and design
considerations.

3.0 Intended Course Outcomes

b. Design the connections for the given steel joints.

c. Analysis and design of singly reinforced rectangular beams.
d. Design of shear reinforcement and development length for beam and slabs.

4.0 Literature Review

Steel structures rely heavily on efficient and reliable connections to ensure structural integrity.
This literature review explores the various types of connections used in steel structures, their
applications, and the factors influencing their selection.
Types of Steel Connections
Steel connections can be broadly categorized into two primary types:

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1. Bolted Connections
 Rivets: While historically prevalent, rivets have been largely replaced by high-strength
bolts due to their installation challenges.
 High-Strength Bolts: These are widely used due to their ease of installation, strength, and
reliability. They include friction grip and bearing type connections.
 Shear Connectors: Employed to transfer shear forces between concrete and steel
components in composite structures.

2. Welded Connections

 Fusion Welding: Involves melting and joining of parent metals. Types include shielded
metal arc welding (SMAW), gas metal arc welding (GMAW), gas tungsten arc welding
(GTAW), and submerged arc welding (SAW).

 Resistance Welding: Uses electrical resistance to create heat and join metals. Types
include spot welding, seam welding, and projection welding.

4.0 Proposed Methodology

1. First, we will discuss with our group members about the topics and finalize one topic.
2. Then we will discuss our topic with the project-guide and start our project work.
3. We will collect some basic information about our topic.
3. We will start to make proposal of project.
4. All team members will start gathering information from the different resources about our
project.
5. Then we will submit the project proposal to the guide.
6. We will start to prepare rough reports and show it to guide.
7. Then after getting approve by guide we will prepare: Types Of Connections Used In Steel
Structure.
8. Lastly we will submit the project along with viva to the respected teacher.

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5.0 Resources Required

Sr. No. Name of Resource / Material Specification Quantity Remarks

1 Computer System 16 GB RAM, 1

Windows 11 OS
2 Internet Wikipedia

3 Software 1.Windows 7 or 1
higher
2.MS Word

6.0 Action Plan

S. Planned Planned Name of

Details of activity
No. Start date Finish date Responsible Team
Members
1 Discussion of topics and finalizing
one
2 Submitting project proposal
3 Gathering information from
resource
4 Discussing with guide regarding
the information collected
5 Preparing report using gathered
information.
6 Preparing rough report
7 Preparing final project report
8 Submitting project along with viva

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 Annexure – II

PART B Micro-Project Report

Types Of Connections Used In Steel Structure

1.0 Rationale
For Civil Engineering technologists to understand the behavior of various structural
components for developing insight for the design concepts and will help the student in quality
supervision on site. The design of steel and RCC structures is the core subject of Civil
Engineering. For the design of steel structures, the properties of steel, different steel sections,
various grades and strength characteristics of steel, and the design of connections are required
as per IS:800-2007. In the design of RCC structures Limit, State Method is to be used as per
IS:456-2000 for analysis and design and IS:875-1987 is to be used for Loading Standards.

2.0 Course Outcomes Addressed

 b. Design the connections for the given steel joints.

 c. Analysis and design of singly reinforced rectangular beams.
 d. Design of shear reinforcement and development length for beam and slabs.

3.0 Literature Review

Steel structures rely heavily on efficient and reliable connections to ensure structural integrity. This
literature review explores the various types of connections used in steel structures, their
applications, and the factors influencing their selection.
Types of Steel Connections
Steel connections can be broadly categorized into two primary types:
1. Bolted Connections
 Rivets: While historically prevalent, rivets have been largely replaced by high-strength bolts
due to their installation challenges.
 High-Strength Bolts: These are widely used due to their ease of installation, strength, and
reliability. They include friction grip and bearing type connections.
 Shear Connectors: Employed to transfer shear forces between concrete and steel
components in composite structures.

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2. Welded Connections

 Fusion Welding: Involves melting and joining of parent metals. Types include shielded metal
arc welding (SMAW), gas metal arc welding (GMAW), gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW), and
submerged arc welding (SAW).

 Resistance Welding: Uses electrical resistance to create heat and join metals. Types include
spot welding, seam welding, and projection welding.

4.0 Actual Methodology Followed

1. First, we will discuss with our group members about the topics and finalize one topic.
2. Then we will discuss our topic with the project-guide and start our project work.
3. We will collect some basic information about our topic.
3. We will start to make proposal of project.
4. All team members will start gathering information from the different resources about our
project.
5. Then we will submit the project proposal to the guide.
6. We will start to prepare rough reports and show it to guide.
7. Then after getting approve by guide we will prepare: Types Of Connections Used In Steel
Structure.
8. Lastly we will submit the project along with viva to the respected teacher.

5.0 Actual Resources Used

Sr. No. Name of Resource / Material Specification Quantity Remarks

1 Computer System 16 GB RAM, 1

Windows 11 OS
2 Internet Wikipedia

3 Software 1.Windows 7 or 1
higher
2.MS Word

5
6.0 Outputs of the Micro-Project

TYPES OF CONNECTIONS USED IN STEEL STRUCTURE

Steel sections are manufactured and shipped to some standard lengths, as governed by rolling,
transportation and handling restrictions. However, most of the steel structural members used in
structures have to span great lengths and enclose large three dimensional spaces. Hence
connections are necessary to synthesize such spatial structures from one- and two-dimensional
elements and also to bring about stability of structures under different loads. Thus, connections are
essential to create an integral steel structure using discrete linear and two-dimensional (plate)
elements. A structure is only as strong as its weakest link. Unless properly designed, the connections
joining the members may be weaker than the members being joined. However, it is desirable to
avoid connection failure before member failure for the following reasons:

• To achieve an economical design, usually it is important that the connections develop the full
strength of the members.
• Usually, connection failure is not as ductile as that of steel member failure. Hence it is desirable to
avoid connection failure before the member failure. Therefore, design of connections is an integral
and important part of design of steel structures. They are also critical components of steel
structures,
• They have the potential for greater variability in behavior and strength,
• They are more complex to design than members, and
• They are usually the most vulnerable components, failure of which may lead to the failure of the
whole structure.

Thus designing for adequacy in strength, stiffness and ductility of connections will ensure deflection
control during service load and larger deflection and ductile failure under overload. Hence, a good
understanding of the behaviour and design of joints and connections in steel structures is an
important prerequisite for any good design engineer. The following five chapters deal with bolted
and welded connections in greater detail. The steel structures are constructed by properly
connecting the available standard sections. The connections are an important part of steel structure
and are designed more conventionally than any individual members. There is a discrepancy
between the actual behavior and the analysis of steel structure is large, therefore the connections
are complex to analyze and design. When the structural member fails in case of overloading then
there is a general
practice to prefer the individual member rather than the connections, therefore this kind of practice
affects many structural members. The cost of structural steel consists of major portion of

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connections and that is the reason primary importance should be given to the design of connections
for safety and economy of structure. The connections are generally provided in the following cases:
• When there is the requirement to cater the heavy load and long span then the built-up sections
are to be provided. In this case, this section should be connected together to get a good section.
• In case of longer span, the length of standard section needs to be connected with other section. In
this case to connect the multiple sections proper design of connections are important.
• The different members need to be connected at the end (for example secondary beams to be
connected to primary beam, column, footings, etc).

TYPES OF CONNECTIONS IN STEEL STRUCTURE:

1. Bolted Connections

Two types of bolts are used in bolted connection. The most common type is bearing bolts in
clearance holes, often referred to as ordinary bolts or black bolts. They are popular since they are
economical, both in terms of material and installation costs.. The force is transferred by bearing
between the plate and bolts at the bolt holes. The bolts experience single or double shear
depending upon the plate configuration. The failure may be either by shearing of the bolts or
bearing of the plate and the bolt

The main disadvantage of bearing type of bolted connections is that the elements undergo some
slip even under a small shear, before being able to transfer force by bearing. This is due to clearance
between the bolts and the holes. Such a slip causes increased flexibility in the lower ranges of load
and unexpected joint behaviors in some situations.

In such cases high strength friction grip (HSFG) bolts are used. In HSFG bolted joints, high strength
bolts (8G or 10K grade) are pre-tensioned against the plates to be bolted together, so that contact
pressure is developed between the plates being joined . When external shear force is applied, the
frictional resistance to slip between the plates prevents their relative slip. These bolted joints

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achieve higher stiffness in shear because of frictional resistance between the contact surfaces. Only
when the externally applied force exceeds the frictional resistance between the plates, the plates
slip and the bolts bear against the bolt holes.

Thus even after slip, there is a reserve strength due to bearing. The HSFG bolts are expensive both
from material and installation points of view. They require skilled labour and effective supervision.
Due to their efficient force transfer mechanism, they have become very popular recently. Moreover,
their performance is superior under cyclic loading compared to other forms of jointing

2. Welded Connections

Welded connections are direct and efficient means of transferring forces from one member to the
adjacent member. Welded connections are generally made by melting base metal from parts to be
joined with weld metal, which upon cooling form the connection. The welded connections in a
majority of the cases may be categorized as fillet weld or butt (or groove) welds are made against
two surfaces of adjacent plates to join them together

The merits of the fillet welds are:

• no prior edge preparation is necessary,
• simple, fast and economical to make, and
• does not require very skilled labour.

The demerits of fillet welds are:

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• not appropriate to transfer forces large in magnitude,
• poorer performance under fatigue loading, and
• less attractive in appearance.

The merits of butt welds are:

• easily designed and fabricated to be as strong as the member,

• better fatigue characteristics, compared to fillet welds,
• better appearance, compared to fillet welds, and
• easy to detail and the length of the connection is considerably reduced.

The demerits of the butt welds are:

• more expensive than fillet welds because of the edge preparation required, and
• require more skilled manpower, than that required for filled welds.

3. RIVETED JOINTS

Riveted joints are very rare in modern steel construction practice. The behaviour and design of
riveted connections are very similar to bearing type of bolted constructions. Since structural rivets
are driven hot, the rivet shank expands to fill the hole while being driven. Hence, while calculating
rivet strength, the hole diameter and not the nominal rivet diameter is used

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Due to this, the slip in riveted joints is less than in bearing type of bolted joint. Further, in the
process of cooling, the rivet shank length reduces, thereby causing some clamping force, as in HSFG.
Riveting has been traditionally limited to railway bridges in India. However, with the introduction of
HSFG bolts, which are better suited under cyclic loading than rivets, their use is discontinued even in
railway bridges in most countries

4. MOMENT RESISTING CONNECTIONS

Moment resisting connections between beams and columns in multistoried buildings are very
common. These connections may be made using bolting or welding. Depending upon the type of
joining method and elements used to make the joint, the flexibility of the joint may vary from
hinged to rigid joint condition. The moment at the joint, M, may vary between rigid joint moment
and zero value and the relative rotation between members at the joint, θ, may vary between zero
and hinged joint rotation, θh . T Moment θ Rotation h Semi-rigid joint Hinged joint Rigid joint in
practice the joints are neither ideally hinged nor ideally rigid.

In fact all the joints exhibit some relative rotation between members being joined This is due to the
deformation of elements in the joint. Any joint developing more than 90 % of the ideal rigid joint
moment is classified as rigid and similarly any joint exhibiting less than 10 % of the ideal rigid joint
moment is classified as hinged joint; and the joint developing moments and rotations in between
are referred as semirigid. Based on test results and theoretical studies, moment rotation
relationship for different standard connections exhibiting semi-rigid behaviour has been presented
in literature.

1. END PLATE CONNECTIONS:

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A flexible end plate connection consists of a plate fastened to both sides of the web in metal
beam structures by fillet welds. The connection should transmit vertical shear and allow beam
end rotations to occur without the development of significant moments. They provide moment-
resistant connections between beams and columns at the corner of frames or a moment resistant
connection to elongate beams.

Typical flexible end plate connections may be partial depth or full-depth and are welded to the
supported metal beam structures. The beam then bolts to the supporting beam or column on site.
This type of connection is relatively low-priced but has the disadvantage of little opportunity for
site adjustment. The overall beam lengths need steel fabrication within tight limits, although
packs are used to compensate for fabrication tolerances and erection tolerances. End plates are
used with skewed beams and tolerate moderate offsets in a beam to column joints. The end plate
is connected to the metal beam structures through weld because its capacity and size are
managed by the sheer magnitude of the beam adjoining the weld. The stress applied to the
connection at the end of the member does not have eccentricities. There are various types of end
plate connections including a flexible, semi rigid, and rigid end plate connections. Fabrications and
cuttings should be conducted with great care to avoid errors. For example, cutting the beams to
length must be as exact as possible. End plates weld transversely to the web of the beam and
then bolted to the supporting member.
This should provide effective, simple connections to transmit shear. End plate connections are
unsuitable for tall steel structures. After keeping in mind the above technicalities, it is essential to
adhere to the strictness of each dimension and connection. Steelwork connection generally
produces the most economical steel frame. A diversion in this connection will inevitably increase
overall cost. The need for individual connections could be avoided by judicious selection of
member sizes.

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CONNECTION DESIGN PHILOSOPHIES

Traditional methods of analysis of connection stresses were based on the following assumptions:
• Connected parts are rigid compared to connectors themselves and hence their deformations
may be ignored
• Connectors behave in a linear-elastic manner until failure.
• Connectors have unlimited ductility.

However, in reality, connected parts such as end plates, angles etc. are flexible and deform even
at low load levels. Further, their behaviour is highly non-linear due to slip, lack of fit, material non-
linearity and residual stresses. Ductility of welds in some orientation with respect to direction of
loads may be very limited, (e.g. Transverse fillet welds) Even though truss joints are assumed to
be hinged the detailing using gusset plates and multiple fastener and welding does not represent
hinged condition. However, in practice the secondary moment associated with such a rigid joint is
disregarded unless the loading is cyclic.

The complexity and variability in strength of connections require a rational design philosophy to
account for their behaviour. Keeping in view the large number of joints to be normally designed in
a structure and the considerable variability in the design strength, any sophisticated analysis is
neither desirable nor warranted. The design should ensure that equilibrium is satisfied,
slenderness of the elements is consistent with the ductility demand and the deleterious effects of
stress concentration on fatigue strength is considered in cyclically loaded structures. The following
approach is consistent with connection design requirements in most general cases encountered in
practice in statically loaded systems. The steps to be followed in the proposed rational design
approach are enumerated initially. These are illustrated using a simple framing angle connection
between a beam and a column of a framed building designed to transfer a shear force of V

BEHAVIOUR OF ELEMENTS IN CONNECTIONS

Many local elements such as end plates, framing angles, stiffeners are used in a connection
design. These elements on the load path have to perform the function of transferring forces
imposed upon them. Frequently forces are distributed somewhat arbitrarily between parallel
elements in the load path. In order to redistribute the loads as assumed and in order to avoid
sudden failure, these elements have to behave in a ductile fashion in case of overloading.

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DISTRIBUTION OF FORCES IN ELEMENTS

The joints are locally complex and theoretically exact calculation of element force/stress is a
highly indeterminate analysis problem, making exact analysis of a joint impractical in day-to-day
design. Theoretically exact analysis methods and experimental studies are used for research to
develop a better understanding of the force flow and simplified connection design procedures.
One often makes simplifying assumptions consistent with the internal behaviour of the elements
and relies heavily on ductility to redistribute overload on any element.

This process requires a good understanding of the following:

• Free body diagram and equilibrium analysis of elements in the load transfer path,
• Relative stiffness of elements in the load transfer path, and
• Ductility demand on the elements and the consequent slenderness limitation.

The simplified analysis steps are illustrated through a few examples. Let us consider an interior
beam to column moment resisting connection of a frame, . It is seen that shear and bending
moment should be transferred from the beams to the column as shown. We know that a major
portion of the bending moment in a beam is transferred through bending stresses in flanges and a
major portion of the shear force in the beam is transferred through shear stress in the web, as
shown. Equal and opposite forces act on the column flanges

The concentrated beam flange forces (C and T) have to be transferred as shear to the column
web, since the column web plate is the stiff element in that plane in the load path. The transfer to
the column web is through column flanges, which may cause excessive bending of column flanges
and excessive bearing in the column web flange junction. In order to overcome this, we often use
stiffener Elements in Connections

7.0 Skill Developed / learning out of this Micro-Project

1. Structural Engineering Fundamentals: Understanding the basic principles of structural

mechanics and load transfer.
2. Material Science: Knowledge of steel properties and behavior under different loading
conditions.
3. Connection Design: Ability to select appropriate connection types based on load
requirements and structural configuration.

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 4. Detailing and Drafting: Skill in creating clear and accurate connection details.
5. Computational Skills: Proficiency in using software tools for connection design and analysis.
6. We are able to communicate skills
7. Teamwork
8. Communication skills improved.

8.0 Applications of this Micro-Project

 Knowledge Dissemination: Provides a comprehensive overview of connection types and their

applications.
 Skill Development: Enhances understanding of structural design principles.
 Design Decision Making: Aids in selecting appropriate connections for different structural
elements.

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