Experimental investigation on bending and shear performance of two-way aluminum alloy gusset joints

Two-way aluminum alloy gusset joints (AAGJs) are considered to be employed in cable-stiffened aluminum alloy single-layer reticulated shell structures meshed with quadrilateral grids. In this study, a series of experiments on six AAGJs with and without shear connectors were conducted to investigate their semi-rigid behavior. Two joints were subjected to pure bending moments and others to shear loads, then their corresponding failure modes were investigated which were mainly beam rupture, beam web buckling, and bolt failure. The moment-rotation curves, shear load-rotation curves, and strain-load curves were also obtained, indicating that AAGJs are typical semi-rigid joints. Shear connectors can optimize the load transferring path and improve ductility under bending moment while enhancing shear performance significantly. A simplified theoretical AAGJ model was also established and parameterized according to the experimental results.