Flexural behaviour of a new modular and demountable truss beam with embedded nodes

Demountable structures, through specific connection designs, enable direct disassembly and subsequent reuse of the structure or its components. The current method of realizing structural demountability primarily relies on bolted connections, which diminish disassembly and convenience. This paper presents a novel modular and demountable truss beam, and a new embedded node has been developed to improve disassembly and assembly efficiency. Tensile and shear tests of the embedded node were conducted. A refined finite element model of the node was developed, and the mechanical performance of the embedded node which was subjected to tension and shear simultaneously, was explored. Bending tests of three modular and demountable truss beams were conducted to investigate the flexural behaviour. Failure modes, load-displacement curves, and load-strain curves were obtained. Results show that the ultimate failure of the truss is caused by the failure of a single member. The FEM of MDTB was developed and verified by tests. • A novel modular and demountable truss beam is presented. • Tensile and shear tests of embedded nodes are conducted. • A refined finite element model of the node is developed and verified. • Bending tests of modular and demountable truss beams are conducted.