Pin-bearing strengths for bolted connections in fibre-reinforced polymer structures

Presented in this paper are pin-bearing strengths for pultruded fibre-reinforced polymer materials that are required in order to check the bearing resistance when designing bolted connections. For steel pin diameters up to 16 mm, equivalent test results, at room temperature, using the European standard test method BS EN 13706-2 and another test method (such as ASTM D 5764) are shown not to be significantly different. As the latter method uses much smaller specimen blanks, new pin-bearing strengths can be determined for the web material in a 203 × 203 × 9·5 mm wide flange shape, with the connection force at 0°, 45° or 90° to the direction of pultrusion. An evaluation is made of the test results and recommendations are given on how pin-bearing strengths are to be determined so that they will match the geometries of bolted connections and connection forces found in practice.