Numerical investigation of modified splice plate beam-to-beam connections for prefabricated composite structure

Prefabricated construction has been rising dramatically in the construction industry in recent times. On the other hand, it is equally complicated and laborious to design and install the prefabricated structures on site. The reason behind this can be credited to the limited design guidelines available and the massive structural parts. This research has been carried out to overcome shortcomings of the prefabricated composite construction. In this paper, the idea of discontinuous beams and a beam-to-beam connection system has been proposed for the prefabricated construction. Modified splice plate bolted connection has been suggested for the discontinuous beams. The proposed connection is similar to splice plate bolted connection, but welding between splice plate and beam web is introduced. This paper mainly investigated the behaviour of modified splice plate bolted connections using finite element (FE) analysis and compared its results with continuous beam. Based on FE modelling results, it has been found that the proposed connection system having welding provides higher strength to the discontinuous beam compared to the same discontinuous beams connected by conventional splice plate bolted connection systems. Splice plates welded to the web of the steel beam need to be fabricated in a factory and normal bolts are installed on the site of the building construction. Thus, it can be concluded from this research that the massive continuous beams can be replaced by discontinuous beams through a presented connection system for prefabricated construction.