Static behaviour of thin-walled X-, T- and Y-rectangular hollow section joints with braces loaded axially or in bending

This article presents the results of an investigation carried out on thin-walled cold-formed and hot rolled rectangular hollow sections with t < 4 mm. Present design guides and literature provide only very little information about the behaviour of such thin-walled connections. For this reason, tests under static load have been performed in order to check whether the present rules for connections with t > 4 mm can also be applied to thin-walled sections. The results are compared with Euro-code 3 and other established design recommendations.