Abstract:Based on the conventional bolt ball joint of gird structure, a novel gird structure joint——bolted ball cylinder joint which could be used on non purlin gird structure was created. Load bearing capacity experiments including 13 bolted ball cylinder joints were conducted. First, the experimental program was introduced in detail. Subsequently, the collapse phenomena of bolted ball cylinder joint were described. It is found that their failure modes mainly include flattening damage of cylinder wall, punching failure of cylinder wall, bolt pullout failure and weld strength failure. The cylinder wall is mainly subjected to hoop stress when the joint is under tension or compression. Setting stiffener can effectively increase the load bearing capacity and stiffness of joint.