| Summary: | Evaluating the structural behavior of connections is of core importance in the design of a Pultruded Glass Fiber Reinforced Polymer (PGFRP) structure. In this paper PGFRP double lap-joint specimens mechanically fastened by Through-Bolts (TB) and Hollo-Bolts (HB) were tested under uniaxial tension test in static conditions. A three-dimensional progressive Finite Element (FE) model was proposed and validated to simulate joint failure. A parametric study was conducted to investigate the influence of edge distance-to-hole diameter (e/d), number of bolts (single, double, and triple bolts), bolt diameter, width-to-hole diameter (w/d), and thickness. The model agreed well with the experimental results regarding load vs displacement, load vs strain and failure characteristics. From the result analysis, it was found that connection resistance increased with an increase in the number of bolt rows. Hence the triple HB connection with specimen ID T12H4 demonstrated an overall ultimate failure load of 57.75 kN. While the aforementioned values were approximately 26% higher when compared to TB for the same configuration.
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