The article is devoted to the actual problem of assigning optimal parameters for connecting steel plates on cover plates with angular welds that are widely used in construction practice. The article presents the results of a comprehensive study of operation of a welded assembly of the plates connection on cover plates. An algorithm is proposed for determining the optimal parameters of a welded joint with fillet welds on the cover plates, which makes it possible to obtain a strength balanced connection. The results of full-scale tensile tests of models were presented. These results confirmed the correctness of the assumed design assumptions, and made it possible to obtain a form of destruction, not characteristic and not described in the normative literature, expressed by cutting the main elements along the length of the overlap in the joint. The possibility of such a form of destruction was confirmed by the results of numerical research in a nonlinear formulation. The optimal parameters of the nodal welded joint determined by engineering calculation are confirmed by experimental studies, as well as by the results of numerical experiments on models of calculation schemes, taking into account the physical nonlinearity of the material operation. The obtained dependence for determining the bearing capacity of the joint by the cut-off mechanism and the expression for limiting the overlap length of the cover plates will make it possible to predict the nature of the fracture and design equally strong joints.
