Resumen:
The necessity to offer differentiated solutions for architectural projects is fostering the development of single-layer spatial structures. As the stability of these structures largely depends on the stiffness of the joints, new joint designs have to be sought. The authors performed various experimental tests on a new kind of joint for tubular members of single-layer structures in order to evaluate the joint stiffness. The aim of the study is to find a finite element model to reproduce the experimental responses, so that the behaviour of the joint can be predicted without the need for further experimentation. The proposed models mainly differed in the way the bolt connection was simulated, as bolts were the most complex elements. The paper presents the comparison between experimental results and numerical results obtained from the different finite element models developed for the joints. One of the three models provided good results even though it was simple.
