Abstract
The rectangular hollow sections (RHS) are produced by several manufacturing methods. In the manufacturing process, residual stresses are introduced by cold-forming and welding, and material strength is increased by the work-hardening. These two effects will influence the behavior of the beam to column connections. This paper describes the measurement of residual stress and the effects of residual stress and the workhardening of materials on the strength of RHS-column to H-beam connections under horizontal force. Three types of RHS are used. (1) RHS formed by cold rolling (2) RHS fabricated from two channels formed by cold pressing (3) RHS built up by four plates In addition to those, stress-relieved RHS produced by method (1) is also investigated. The results are as follows : 1) The work-hardening strongly influences the strength of the connection. However, the effect of residual stress is not so large. 2) The yield and the maximum strengths are estimated by Eq. (2) and Eq. (7) respectively. 3) As the maximum design formula, Eq. (10) is available regardless of the difference in manufacturing method of RHS.
