Strength of timber connections under potential failure modes: An improved design procedure

Abstract

The wood engineering community has dedicated a significant amount of effort over the last decades to establish a reliable predictive model to determine the capacity of timber connections under different failure modes, particularly, for wood failure mechanisms. A design procedure is proposed to identify the wood and fastener capacities under possible brittle, mixed and ductile failure modes of timber connections. For the wood capacity, the effective wood thickness is taken into account at each potential failure zone. The fastener failing resistance under yielding and ultimate limit states are determined using the relevant wood embedment strength and the fastener moment capacity. The design procedure presented is verified using tests conducted on rivet joints under longitudinal and transverse loadings on New Zealand Radiata Pine laminated veneer lumber (LVL) and glulam. This design procedure gives the practitioners the ability to predict accurately the connection ultimate capacity and its failure mode.