Experimental Study on the Flexural Behavior of an Innovative Modular Steel Building Connection with Installed Bolts in the Columns

Abstract

Modular buildings have the highest levels of precasting in the current building system. There are some defects in present modular connections, such as the difficulties of construction, the weakening of the bearing capacity of beams or columns, and damage to decorations. This paper presents an innovative modular connection with installed bolts in the columns. Two symmetrical monotonous static loading tests were conducted to explore the flexural behavior of the innovative connection. Meanwhile, the moment–rotation relations, destruction process, ultimate bearing capacity, stiffness classification and internal stress distribution were analyzed. The results showed that the specimen S1 with smaller diagonal stiffeners lost its bearing capacity due to the failure of the welding seam, and the extreme moment was 169 kN·m. The failure mode of S2 with large diagonal stiffeners was beam buckling, and the extreme moment was 209 kN·m. The stress of diagonal stiffeners and the join between the upper beam and stiffeners increased rapidly. Stiffeners can increase the stiffness and load-bearing capacity. The connection failures occurred on the beam or beam–column joints, while the connection between modules remained undamaged, which showed that the new connection has a good bearing capacity under the action of bending moment and pressure.