Abstract
Pin-end connections have been widely used in tension structures. Accurate design methods are required to ensure these connections are safe and economic. The modeling of a given connection type is normally based on the determination of the connection behavior using experimental or numerical methods. This paper presents some finite-element (FE) modeling principles to analyze pin-end connections. The MSCMarc finite-element package is used to simulate the experimental behavior observed in tests conducted at the Nagoya Institute of Technology, Japan. The parameters varied in both the experiments and MSCMarc simulations are the inner radius of pin-block and gusset-block, the radius and the position of pin. The results obtained from the FE analyses are evaluated and the numerically predicted ultimate strengths are also compared with experiment data. It is shown that the proposed modeling principles are effective and efficient.
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