Experimental investigation of bolted cold formed steel frame apex connections under pure moment

An extensive experimental investigation on bolted moment connections between cold formed steel sections was carried out. The study was performed on portal frame rafter with double C cold formed sections. The investigation focused on the apex connection. A total of 10 rafter sections as part of portal frames were used in the study. The study aimed to investigate the effect of different factors on both the frame capacity and connection failure mode. The effects of variable bolt pitches, thickness of gusset plates, effect of bearing or hole deformation around the bolt were investigated. A parallel theoretical study was carried out using the same boundary conditions and the results were compared with the experimental ones. The compatibility between the results was good. The flexural failure of the connected sections was always the critical.