Mechanical Properties Prediction for Cold-formed Steel Angle Connection with Various Flange Cleat Thickness

<jats:p>Connection is an important element in structural steelwork construction. Eurocode does not provide adequate design information for mechanical properties prediction of top-seat flange cleat connection, especially for thin-walled cold-formed steel structures. Adopting hot-rolled design with neglecting thin-walled behaviour could lead to unsafe or uneconomic design. This research aims to provide accurate mechanical properties prediction for bolted top-seat flange cleat connection in cold-formed steel structures. The scope of work focuses on the effect of various thickness of the flange cleat to the rotational stiffness and strength behaviour of a beam-to-column connection. Experimentally verified and validated finite element modelling technique is applied in the parametric investigation. Two categories of flange cleat thickness, ranged from 2 mm to 40 mm are studied. From the developed numerical models, it is observed that Eurocode has overestimated the initial rotational stiffness prediction, calculated with component method. The over-estimation would influence the overall stiffness of structures and force distribution within the components. As a conclusion, a set of newly proposed accurate predictions for initial rotational stiffness and strength of cold-formed steel top-seat flange cleat connection, with the influence of the thickness of flange cleat is presented.</jats:p>