Performance of Joint Structure of Bent L‐Shaped Steel Members for GFRP Wall Railings

Glass fibre reinforced polymer (GFRP) has excellent material properties such as light weight and corrosion resistance, and has been applied to bridge appendages such as wall railings. In this case, bent L‐shaped steel members (bent members) are used at the joints with the floor slab. The GFRP wall railings were designed to consider the wind loads acting on them, and the bolt holes for the anchor bolts were slotted hole for ease of installation. In this study, the effects of loading conditions and bolt arrangement of anchor bolts slotted holes in the performance of the joint structure were analytically investigated for the base joints of GFRP wall railings.

The results presented that, in the initial stiffness of the base, the loading condition was smaller for the negative loading than for the positive loading, and the bolt arrangement was smaller on the outside than on the inside. It is shown that the incremental bolt axial force of the anchor bolts is borne by four bolts in the positive loading, however, is biased to only two bolts in the negative loading, focusing on the neutral axis position.