Study on Reinforcing Methods for Welded Tubular Joints Structures

For tubular structures,the stiffness of the chord in radial direction is generally much weaker than that of the brace in axial direction,and thus failure occurs easily at the chord surface near the brace/chord intersection.To improve the bearing capacity of a tubular joint,reinforcement is necessary.Several strengthening methods,including stiffened internal ring reinforcement,collar plate reinforcement,internal plate reinforcement and chord thickness reinforcement,are introduced here.Referring to some experimental investigations,the reinforcing efficiency of the presented reinforcements is assessed by using finite element analysis.