A FORTRAN computer program applying the ultimate strength/instantaneous center of rotation method was written to generate the eccentricity coefficients used for the study of this project. For single line bolted connections, the value of the eccentricity coefficient is determined by several independent variables: NR (number of rows in the bolted connection), B (distance between two adjacent bolts in a vertical column), Xo (horizontal distance from centroid to applied load), and 0 (the load angle). From the relationships between the eccentricity coefficient and the independent variables, it was observed that a mathematical model of the eccentricity coefficient with respect to the independent variables is hard to determine. Hence, statistical equations for predicting the eccentricity coefficients were developed by using the Buckingham's PI-Theorem and regression analysis. The precision of the statistical equations is discussed, and several ways to improve the precision are presented in this paper.

Master of Science