New design model for splitting in timber connections with one row of fasteners loaded in the parallel-to-grain direction

Abstract

Timber connections with one row of fasteners can fail, as the rest of timber connections, in a ductile (yielding of the fastener and embedment of the timber) or in a brittle way (wood fracture). In this latter case, one of the most common brittle failure modes is splitting, which has been traditionally assumed to be avoided in design practice by respecting a minimum spacing between fasteners. This measure reduces the possibilities, but it does not guarantee to avoid splitting. A new model dealing with splitting for connections with one row of large diameter fasteners loaded parallel-to-grain is presented in this paper. An extensive database of tests is used to compare the new approach with the existing models and to demonstrate the reached accuracy improvement.