Mechanical Behaviors of a Symmetrical Bolt Fasten Wedge Active Joint for Braced Excavations

Joint-failure of steel tube bracing structures usually causes an excavation accident. A symmetrical bolt fasten wedge (BFW) active joint has been innovatively developed in this paper, which overcomes the shortcomings of the traditional steel wedge (SW) active joint. Three full-scale BFW active joint specimens were manufactured for field operation tests. The test results show that the proposed active joint had a good construction feasibility and a wide applicability. After the field operation tests, axial compression experiments were implemented. Meanwhile, a series of numerical simulations were performed. The numerical results agreed with that of the experiments. Both showed that the working principle and mechanical principle of the BFW active joint was reasonable and ingenious; it had outstanding mechanical properties. Overall, the BFW active joint had the advantages of structure and mechanical properties, and it is suitable for popularization and application.