Experimental behaviour of bolted connections with stiffeners

This paper focuses on the behaviour of connections with stiffened top and seat angles. There is a discussion of nine statically loaded full-scale tests carried out in three groups for different thicknesses of top and seat angle stiffeners. The purpose was to provide the necessary data to develop Eurocode 3. The maximum bending moment increased with the increase in stiffener thickness from 6 to 10 mm. Moreover, the plastic flexural resistance and bending moment capacity increased as the length of top and seat angles decreased. Furthermore, the plastic region of the seat angle section parallel to beam was greater than the vertical section of the angle, and the dissipated energy depended on the lengths of the angles.