Shear Strength of Cold-Formed Steel Flexural Members Connected Using Clip Angles

In building construction, cold-formed steel flexural members are commonly connected to other cold-formed steel members or the main building structures using clip angles with screws. A series of flexural tests were recently conducted at University of North Texas to study the shear strength of steel clip angles using in cold-formed steel framing. The tests showed that the shear strength of the connected cold-formed steel floor joists can be significantly increased when a clip angle is installed on the web. This paper presents a design guide to consider the shear strength improvement in the cold-formed steel joists due to the presence of a clip angle. The new method proposes a simplified approach to determine the elastic shear buckling stress of a joist-clip angle assemble and the method is verified by the test results. The paper also reports the results the flexural tests on floor joists recently conducted at the University of North Texas.

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