Experimental study of swage-locking pinned aluminium alloy shear connections

This paper presents an experimental investigation into the structural behaviour and strength of swage-locking pinned aluminium alloy double-shear connections. It reports the failure modes (shear-out, bearing, block shear and net section failures), ultimate resistances and load-deformation histories. A total of twenty-three tests with four different aluminium alloy grades and various geometric variables, including end distances, edge distances and pin spacings, were carried out. The experimental results were utilized to assess the accuracy of the current American, Australian/New Zealand and European design provisions, as well as recent proposals by Teh and co-workers, extended to the design of aluminium alloy shear connections. The current code equations are shown to provide overly conservative strength predictions for the tested specimens. The equations of Teh and co-workers provide significantly more accurate strength predictions than the codes, though the test results indicate that there is still scope for more efficient design equations for swage-locking pinned aluminium alloy shear connections.