A new proposal for predicting the bearing resistance of bolted connections for tubular racking structures

In the field of shelving structures for the storage of goods realized adopting tubular members, an
interesting connection typology to be used to fasten the vertical columns to the beams is represented by bolted connections with long bolts in shear. With reference to this kind of connections, the authors have already performed a wide experimental and numerical investigation highlighting the occurrence, in this specific case, of local buckling phenomena. In this paper, the attention is focused on the influence of local buckling on the connection resistance, which is neglected by the current version of EC3 in the prediction of the resistance of shear connections of plates. In particular, starting from the results of the experimental and numerical analyses previously performed, in the present paper a formulation for predicting the bearing resistance of the examined connection able to account for the phenomenon of local instability is set up.