Experimental Study on the Rotational Stiffness of Pocket Type Scaffolding Connection According to the Rotation Direction

Abstract

The rotational stiffness of the pocket-type connection used in system scaffolding to join horizontal members and vertical members was evaluated. To investigate the rotational stiffness of connections when subjected to bending moments in the downward, upward, and lateral rotation directions, load tests were performed on 30 specimens with cantilever specimens for each rotational direction. Results showed that failure shapes of pocket-type connections were different depending on the rotation direction. Owing to the differences in the failure phenomena, the maximum moment capacity of the upwardly rotated specimens was the largest, followed by that of the downwardly rotated specimens and the laterally rotated specimens in that order. Compared to the Eurocode 3 connection classification, the pocket-type connections correspond to semi-rigid connections when the rotation direction is downward or upward, and they can be considered nominal pin connections when the rotation direction is lateral. From the moment-rotation curves, it was concluded that the rotational stiffness of the pocket-type connections could be estimated as a bilinear model.