Vol. 3, No. 2, pp. 607-627(2007)
EXPERIMENTAL AND THEORETICAL INVESTIGATIONS OF
PALLET RACKS CONNECTIONS
Lucjan Ślęczka and Aleksander Kozłowski
Rzeszów University of Technology, Department of Building Structures, W. Pola 2, 35-959 Rzeszów, Poland
Fax.: +48-17-8542974
(Corresponding author: E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
Received: 16 November 2006; Revised: 24 January 2007; Accepted: 5 February 2007
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ABSTRACT
Steel storage pallet racks are three-dimensional framed structures, similar to multi-storey building structures. They are widely used for the storage of different types of materials. To provide the easy accessibility to stored products, pallet racks are not braced in down-aisle direction. The only source of the stiffness required for down-aisle stability is the stiffness of the connections between columns and beams, and the stiffness of the column bases. Connections between columns and beams are realized by means of different types of mechanical devices (tabs, hooks etc) without the need of using bolts and welds. Such joints have non-linear φ − M characteristic. Most of the recent design codes and papers recommend experimental tests of beam-to-column connections to obtain semi-rigid joint characteristics that can be applied in the global analysis. The aim of this paper is to present application of the component method to assess main joint properties, i.e. the moment resistance and initial stiffness of storage rack joints. Results obtained using developed model are compared with the test results.
KEYWORDS
Storage pallet racks, component method, semi-rigid connection, experimental tests
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