Openings are usually required to allow services like plumbing, sewage pipes and electrical wiring to run through beams. This prevents an extra depth of the floor/ceiling, while preserving architectural considerations. The introduction of large opening causes additional tension perpendicular to grain in timber beams. The low tensile strength perpendicular to grain of wood allows crack formation. Crack propagation around the hole considerably decreases the load-carrying capacity of the beam. However, in most cases, crack formation and propagation around the hole can be prevented by the use of an appropriate reinforcement. Screw, glued-in rods, and plywood are alternative options for the reinforcement. Design of the reinforcement requires that the working mechanism of the reinforcement is fully understood and properly addressed. In addition, reinforcement should be designed for actions produced in the section of the beam weakened by the hole. The current paper uses a simple truss model around the opening to calculate the tensile force in the reinforcement. Two simple formulations for design of the reinforcement are derived and compared with numerical and experimental results, showing an overall good correspondence. The proposed truss model can be considered for incorporation in future codes of practice.
Wood beam-column connections have traditionally been designed as simple shear connections, ignoring their potential moment capacity. A major reason for not utilizing such moment connections is linked to the brittle limit states that wood components exhibit. The purpose of this research was to develop and test a ductile and high-strength wood moment frame connection. A design procedure for such a connection is presented herein.
The proposed glulam beam-column connection utilizes an embedded steel knife plate with a reduced section that acts as a ductile yield link, thus limiting the moment that can be transferred through the connection. This configuration is intended to fail through yielding of the ductile link, thus preventing non-ductile failure mechanisms of wood from occurring. In addition, the connection provides more wood cover over the embedded steel plate, which potentially may increase the connection's fire rating as compared to typical connections.
Two specimens, based on a baseline connection developed using the design procedure presented, were monotonically loaded until failure. Unlike the first specimen, the second was reinforced in the perpendicular-to-grain direction using self-tapping screws. Failure mechanisms were analyzed, and performance characteristics related to the connection's strength, stiffness, and ductility were evaluated. Results indicated that the reinforced specimen exhibited higher strength, stiffness, and ductility compared to the unreinforced specimen. The reinforced specimen showed improvements of 9.49% and 42.2% in yielding and ultimate moment, respectively, compared to the unreinforced specimen. Moreover, an improvement of 31.3% in ductility was obtained using perpendicular-to-grain reinforcement.
A research study was undertaken to investigate the mechanical performance of glulam beams reinforced by CFRP or bamboo. Local reinforcement is proposed in order to improve the flexural strength of glulam beams. The glulam beam is strengthened in tension and along its sides with the carbon fiber-reinforced polymer CFRP or bamboo. A series of CFRP reinforced glulam beams and bamboo reinforced glulam beams were tested to determine their load-deformation characteristics. Experimental work for evaluating the reinforcing technique is reported here. According to experiment results, the CFRP and bamboo reinforcements led to a higher glulam beam performance. By using CFRP and bamboo reinforcements several improvements in strength may be obtained.
The idea of reinforcing glued laminated timber (glulam) beams came in response to the need to improve the mechanical properties, as well as to ensure higher reliability of this type of structural elements. This paper describes an experimental program which examines the reinforcement in flexure of glulam beams with carbon fibre reinforced plastic (CFRP) plates. Fifteen beams reinforced with CFRP at the tension side and five unreinforced control beams were instrumented and tested to failure in a four-point bending configuration. The mechanical properties of reinforced beams are compared to those of unreinforced beams with regard to the load-deflection behaviour, failure mode, ultimate load capacity, stiffness and strain distribution. The experimental results demonstrated the beneficial effect of the proposed reinforcing solution in terms of strength, stiffness and ductility.
In this paper, the performance improvement of glulam post-to-beam connections reinforced by plain round rods (PRRs) and self-tapping screws (STSs) were compared. Five non-reinforced post-to-beam bolted connections, five PRR-reinforcing connections and five STS-reinforcing connections were experimentally investigated under monotonic and low frequency cyclic loading. Their stiffness, ductility, moment resistance capacity, failure modes and seismic behavior were analyzed. The findings indicated that both of these two reinforcements could mitigate wood splitting, and change the failure mode from brittle failure to ductile failure. The maximum moment and failure rotation of PRR-reinforcing connection were increased by 29% and 6% respectively, compared with those of non-reinforced connection. In addition, those of STS-reinforcing connection increased by 86% and 145% respectively. Furthermore, the comparison of PRR-reinforcing and STS-reinforcing connections indicated that the connection ductility reinforced by self-tapping screws enhanced more significantly; 106% higher than that of PRR-reinforcing connection. Moreover, under the low frequency cyclic loading, PRR-reinforcing and STS-reinforcing connections dissipated more energy (336% and 641% respectively) with a lower stiffness degeneration rate and a higher equivalent viscous damping ratio than those of non-reinforced connection. Besides, the dissipation energy and equivalent viscous damping ratio of STS-reinforcing connection were larger than those of PRR-reinforcing connection.
Within this paper a comparison of different reinforcement concepts for timber beams with round holes is carried out. Therefore currently applied standardized methods and two recently developed approaches are considered. By means of numerical and analytical investigations it becomes apparent that the analysed reinforcement methods divergent to those given in current standards have great potential: shear stresses as well as tensile stresses perpendicular to the grain in the critical areas around the beam opening can be reduced significantly. Hence, the maximum load carrying capacities of the new reinforcement concepts supposedly exceed the standardized ones considerably. For verification of the results experimental investigations on beams with different reinforcement methods are planned.
This thesis deals with the shear design of Cross Laminated Timber (CLT) elements stressed by concentrated loads which are locally reinforced by means of self-tapping screws with continuous threads. A simplified model is presented using an effective width for the calculation of the shear stresses in the vicinity of point supports or concentrated loads. Laboratory tests supply material-mechanical principles to determine the interaction of rolling shear stresses and compression perpendicular to the grain. In addition to experimental tests theoretical models are developed to examine the load bearing behaviour of CLT-elements reinforced by self-tapping screws. Preliminary tests with plate elements provide initial experience with these reinforcements under biaxial load transfer. Finally a design concept validated by means of the test results is proposed.
Point-supported flat slabs made of cross laminated timber (CLT) for multi-storey buildings pose various challenges to structural timber design. One aspect are concentrated compressive loads, which cause stress concentrations in the form of shear and compression perpendicular to the grain at the point supports. The present work deals with this problem and shows a method, how the support area can be reinforced with a system connector. After a specification of the connector, the functionality of this construction element is described on the basis of experimental, numerical and analytical studies for a symmetrical loading. The interaction of the connector with the (CLT) is presented with an anlaytical model and numerical simulations, and evaluated with mechanical tests.
Wood is one of the most popular renewable natural materials. Nowadays, raw wood is hardly ever used in the construction industry. It has been substituted by glued laminated wood that is processed with the use of high-tech methods, thus eliminating the principal flaws and defects of the natural material. The deformability of glued laminated beams with combined reinforcement has been studied, under which the steel reinforcement of the periodic profile was placed in the dappings of the upper compressed zone, while ribbon-reinforced composite was glued to the bottom of the stretched zone. The graphical charts for the layer change of the deformations of wood, steel, and composite reinforcement from the beginning of the loading application to the moment of destruction are presented.
A research project was undertaken to investigate the behaviour of composite CLT slabs with glulam downstands cut back from the supports. A desk study and Finite Element Modelling (FEM) were used and evaluated on their ability to model and design such a structure, focusing on the cut back location and utilising reinforcement screws. The project included full-scale laboratory testing of a composite slab to failure with innovative data collection techniques such as Particle Image Velocimetry. A similar structural element was also used in a real construction project and the investigation gave insight towards its design. It was concluded that the embedment depth of reinforcement screws in the glulam downstand is key to the performance of the composite slab with full depth penetration advisable. FEM can give useful results for stress concentrations in the timber and a simplified design method was proposed.
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+Plane+Structures+Under+Concentrated+Loading+from+Point+Supports+-+Shear+Design+including+Reinforcements){kind=link}
