Proceedings home preface contents authors keywords copyright reference ©2012 Civil-Comp Ltd				Paper 156 A Study of Modelling Composite Connections in Two and Three Dimensions M.N. Kataoka and A.L.H.C. El Debs Department of Structural Engineering, University of São Paulo, São Carlos, Brazil Keywords: non-linear analyses, composite connection, concrete filled steel tube. full paper (pdf) - reference The results presented in this paper are part of a comprehensive research project concerning steel-concrete composite connections involving a concrete filled tube (CFT) column that was conducted to understand their mechanical behaviour and provide design provisions. From the wide range of ductile connection configurations available, the focus of this paper is on the endplate type which is widely used in seismic resistant frames. In order to investigate the behaviour of the proposed connection, numerical simulations with three and two dimensional models were performed. The work presented in this paper employed the nonlinear finite element program DIANA to perform numerical simulations of the endplate bolted connections subjected to cyclic loading and compare the results with the experimental data. The experimental results used in this paper are from Kataoka [1] where some types of composite connections involving CFT columns were tested. The numerical analysis has been increasingly used to study the behaviour of structures with some degree of nonlinearity, which was not possible before because of the absence of computing resources and physical models that can adequately represent the material behaviour. According to some researchers, the use of modelling in structural analysis is an economical and practical way to predict the behaviour of structures in engineering. An example is in Soriano [2] who claims that these analyses have motivated a great development of mathematical models, allowing realistic modelling, reliable and practical applications in engineering including much more economical than physical models. Based on this study, it can be concluded that the proposed three-dimensional finite element modelling can accurately represent the main features of the behaviour of composite endplate connections. The two-dimensional model does not represent correctly some important parameters to provide a correct understanding of the failure mechanism although to express satisfactorily the force versus displacement relationship. In structures without a mix of materials and so many interfaces, as reinforced concrete elements, the two-dimensional model can represent the behaviour well. References 1 M.N. Kataoka, "Estudo do comportamento de ligações viga-pilar preenchido submetidas a ações cíclicas", Ph.D. Thesis, University of São Paulo, São Carlos, SP, Brazil, 2011. 2 H.L. Soriano, "Método de Elementos Finitos em Análise de Estruturas", Editora da Universidade de São Paulo, SP, Brazil, 2003.