Shear behaviour of laminated Douglas fir veneer

Abstract

The rolling shear and longitudinal shear behaviour of laminated Douglas fir veneers was studied using specimens with 15 layers of 2.5 mm veneers. The rolling shear specimens were constructed such that the 3 central veneers were cross-plies with grain angle oriented perpendicular to the long axis of the specimen. The other layers were orthogonal to the cross-plies. The longitudinal shear specimens had a LVL lay-up with the exception of a reinforcement layer of fiber-glass attached to the bottom face veneer. The fiber-glass layer prevented specimens from failing in bending/tension mode and ensured longitudinal shear failures. Specimens were subjected to static and cyclic loads in a “flatwise” three point bending configuration. It was found that the rolling shear failure mode exhibited a higher fatigue resistance than the longitudinal shear failure mode. A damage model that took the stress history into account was calibrated to the experimental data of each specimen type. Good agreement between model predictions and experimental results were obtained for both failure modes.