Lecture Notes #28

Design of Gusset plate

Professor Guowei Ma
Office: 160
Tel: 61-8-6488-3102
Email: ma@civil.uwa.edu.au

Gusset Plate
Flat structural elements used to connect adjacent
members meeting at truss panel joints and at diagonal
brace connections.
Help transmit loads from one member to another.
Maybe welded or bolted to the members meeting at the
joints.
Minimum thickness used in design practice is usually 10
mm.

Gusset Plate at a Diagonal Brace

Gusset Plate at a Truss Panel Point

Gusset Plate at a Truss Panel Point

Gusset Plate at a Truss Panel Point

Gusset Plate at a Truss Support

Design of Gusset Plate

For diagonal bracing connection, several connection
interfaces must be designed:
diagonal brace-to-gusset connection
gusset-to-column connection
beam-to-column connection
At truss joints, the gusset plates connect the web
members to the chord members
The centroidal axes of the members meeting at the joint
coincide at one point, called the work point (WP)
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Design of Gusset Plate

Moment may be induced in the gusset plate and the
adjoining members if it is not feasible to have a common
WP
Shear and axial stresses
Whitmore effective width, lw
Projecting lines at an angle of spread of 30 on both
side of the connection starting from the first row of bolts
to the last row of bolts
For welded connections, projected on both sides of the
longitudinal weld to the end of the weld

Design of Gusset Plate

Effective gross area
Whitmore effective width, lw times the plate thickness, t
End of the bracing member or truss web member
terminates at least a distance of 2t away from the reentrant corner of the gusset plate at the gusset-to-column
interfaces
Above requirement can be relaxed for connections subject
to monotonic or static loading

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Out-of-Plane Buckling
Unbraced length, Lg
the larger of the length of the plate between adjacent
lines of bolts parallel to the direction of the axial
compression force, or the length of the plate along the
centroidal axis of the diagonal brace or truss web
member between the end of the brace or truss web
member and the connected edge of the gusset plate.
Buckling is assumed to occur over a plate width equal to
the Whitmore effective width, lw
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Out-of-Plane Buckling
N c = cr lwt
l w:

Whitmore effective width

t:

Thickness of the gusset plate

0.9

cr:

The critical buckling stress

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Buckling of the Free or

Unsupported Edge

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Buckling of the Free or

Unsupported Edge
Gusset plate under monotonic or static loading

t 0.5 L fg

fy
E

Gusset plate subject to cyclic (or seismic) loading

t 1.33L fg

fy
E

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Yielding of Gusset Plate

Design tension or compression yield strength

N s = f y lwt
Tension yielding is the most desirable form of failure
because of the ductility associated with this failure mode

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Tension Failure
Tension failure of the gusset plate due to fracture at a
bolt line within the Whitmore effective area

N s = f u (lw nd hole )t
f u : Tensile strength of the gusset plate
: 0.75
n : Number of bolt holes perpendicular to
the applied axial force for each line
d hole : Diameter of bolt hole
Least desirable form of failure because of the sudden and
brittle nature of this failure mode
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Combined Actions
2

N V
M
+
1.0
+
M s N s Vs
*

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Example
For the truss joint shown below, the gusset plate is made of
Grade 400 steel with a yield stress fy= 400 MPa, and tensile
strength fu=520 MPa assuming a M20 bolts of Property Class
4.6, determine
i) Whitmore effective width for the gusset plate on diagonal
web members A and B
ii) Compression buckling capacity of the gusset plate on
diagonal member A
iii) Tension capacity of the gusset plate on diagonal member B
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16 mm thick
376 kN

Gusset plate

271 kN
271 kN

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40

75 mm

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Solution
1)

lwA = 40 + bA + LwA tan

= 40 + 80 + 150 tan 30
= 206.6 mm
lwB = bB + 2 LwB tan
= 80 + 2 150 tan 30
= 253.2 mm

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2)

Lg = 75 mm
1
1
3
I A = lwAt = (206.6)(16) 3 = 70519.5 mm 4
12
12
206.6 mm

rA =

Lg

75
=
= 16.2
rA 4.62
2 EI 3.14 2 (200 109 )(70519.5 10 12 )
N cr = 2 =
le
(75 10 3 ) 2

75 mm

IA
70519.5
=
= 4.62 mm
A
(206.6)(16)

= 2.4721107 N
= 24721 kN

N c = N cr = 0.9 24721 = 22249 kN

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3)

Tension yielding capacity of the gusset plate on

the diagonal element B

N t = f y Ag = (0.9)(400 106 ) (16 10 3 )(253.2 103 )

= 1458.4 kN
Tension capacity of the gusset plate due fracture

N t = 0.85 f u Au
= (0.9)(0.85)(520 106 ) (16 10 3 )(253.2 2 22) 10 3
= 1331.5 kN

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