The study reports on block shear investigations with bondlines of face-glued laminations and matched solid wood specimens from hardwood glulam (GLT) beams produced industrially from eight technically and stand volume-wise important species. The European hardwoods comprised oak, beech, sweet chestnut and ash and the tropical species were teak, keruing, melangangai and light red meranti. The adhesives were phenol-resorcinol and melamine-urea. When combining all species in one sample, a rather strong linear relationship of bond and wood shear strength was observed. The ratio of bond vs. wood shear strength was for all species on the mean value level = 0.9, and likewise (with one exception) for the respective strengths’ 5%-quantiles. Consistent with literature, the test results showed no significant correlations between bond shear strength and density, wood shear strength and wood failure percentage of individual species, respectively. The investigations render the methodological basics of some international standards on bond quality verification as being inappropriate. New, empirically validated hardwood GLT bond requirements are proposed for discussion and implementation at the CEN and ISO levels. The strength ratio specifications reflect respective ANSI provisions, yet the reference quantity wood shear strength is now determined in an unbiased manner from matched GLT specimens. The wood failure verification proposal is based on the 10%-quantile and mean level for initial type testing and factory production control. The requirements further account for the pronounced difference observed in scatter of wood failure between European and tropical species.
A post tensioned timber connection made of glulam has been developed at the ETH in Zurich. The connection is made of spruce with ash reinforcement in the connection area where high stresses perpendicular to the grain occur. The moment-rotation-behaviour of this post-tensioned beam-column timber joint has been analysed with a series of static bending tests. The timber joint was loaded at the ends of the beams in order to apply a moment to the connection. The tests were conducted with different forces in the tendon, from 300 kN up to 700 kN. The bending tests were performed with a controlled load level, so that no embedment failure perpendicular to the grain occurred in the column. The intended self-centring behaviour could be verified and no damage could be observed during all the tests.
A final bending test was conducted in order to study the failure mode of the post-tensioned timber connection. The vertical load on the beams was increased until the tendon-elongation got so high that the test had to be aborted due to safety reasons. Nearly no damage occurred during the last test, only minor residual deformations could be observed. The failure is an embedment failure in the column due to exceedance of the strength perpendicular to the grain. The specimen, test setup, instrumentation and the results of all performed tests are presented in this technical report.
Delamination resistance and tensile shear strength (TSS) are essential for structural adhesives used in timber industry. Thus these two factors were investigated on bonded ash (Fraxinus excelsior L.) to check the suitability of adhesively bonded ash as building material. For determination of the delamination resistance industrially bonded ash glulam was used. The specimens for the tensile shear tests where produced in the laboratory. Four different adhesives types and different pre-treatment were investigated. The samples for TSS were tested in dry and wet condition. 80% of the tested series met the requirements of the standards at dry, and only 30% passed at wet condition. None of the adhesives tested was able to pass the delamination test. No distinct influence of the different parameters studied is notable for most of the adhesive systems, only extended closed assembly time and lower mixing ratios seem to improve the bond quality of MUF. Additional chemical analyses, conducted to find evidence for the poor bonding performance, showed that fatty acid content, pH and acidic extractives are in between the range of beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) and Spruce (Picea abies Karst.). However the formic acid is an exception with a four times higher amount as the other two species investigated.
Cross laminated timber (CLT) has gained popularity and relevance in the construction industry during the past decade. Its versatile applicability, economic competitiveness as well as an increasing social consciousness for sustainable constructions have been main reasons for this positive development. Its laminar composition enables CLT to withstand in- and out-of-plane loads. Due to its structure featuring orthogonally oriented adjacent layers, in CLT loaded out-of-plane, shear and more specific rolling shear has to be considered in ultimate (ULS) as well as serviceability limit state (SLS) design. This is because rolling shear constitutes a potential failure mechanism and contributes a noticeable amount to the overall deflection. Comprehensive knowledge on rolling shear modulus (GR) and strength (fR) is therefore of utmost importance for an adequate design of CLT structures. Previous investigations on rolling shear properties and their influential parameters have primarily been performed numerically and using Norway spruce (Picea abies). The main goal of our contribution, based on investigations detailed in Ehrhart (2014), was to identify the most important parameters for rolling shear characteristics and to quantify their influence. Furthermore, information about the rolling shear performance of several timber species was analysed to investigate their potential for use in CLT-products. In view of upcoming new timber species increasingly pushed into the market, investigations on rolling shear comprised also some hardwood and other softwood species with a potential to be used for (cross) laminated timber products.
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