Experimental Tests of T-Joints Made of Thin-Walled Cold-Formed Steel Profiles Assembled with Steel Rivets

The paper presents the comparative results of an experimental program performed on thin-walled steel profiles joints. The main objective of the paper is to provide for the scientific community experimental results performed on usual materials and riveted joint connections useful in numerical nonlinear modeling and future comparative analyses. The C profiles have dimensions (height × width × thickness) 150 × 45 × 1.2 and 1.6 mm and are all made e of DX51D + Z steel sheets. A number of five specimens was considered for each thickness. The specimens represent a T joint hinged connection with one steel rivet on each side of the profiles. The results showed that the maximum load capacity depends on the shear load capacity of the steel rivets and there is a specific mechanisms failure caused by shearing of the rivets although the profiles did not fail. The increased wall thickness did not change the failure mode of the joint. However, the load carrying capacity significantly increased.