In timber research, a main objective is the development and promotion of innovative and efficient timber structures. Therefore a pilot building, named ETH House of Natural Resources, has been designed, which uses two innovative structural systems, a post-tensioned timber frame and a composite beech LVL concrete floor. The building will be used as an office building for the Laboratory of Hydraulics, Hydrology and Glaciology from ETH Zürich and will serve as a showcase building of a sustainable and reliable timber construction for students and researchers, among others.
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.
To estimate the loss of tendon force for a post-tensioned timber connection a series of tests are being conducted at the ETH in Zurich. Several post-tensioned specimens are being observed in different climate conditions. One set of specimens is in a climate chamber, where the relative humidity and temperature are kept constant. The second set of test specimens is positioned in an uncontrolled environment, where temperature and relative humidity change daily. The two environments allow estimating the influence of changes in relative humidity and temperature on the loss rate of tendon force. First results show that the relative humidity influences this rate, making it a key variable to estimate the total loss in post-tensioning force during the lifetime of a building.
The present research report was written as a PhD thesis (ETH Dissertation Nr. 22815) by Flavio Wanninger and shows the results of a comprehensive experimental and numerical analysis on the structural behaviour of post-tensioned timber frame, in particular with focus on the momentrotation-behaviour of the developed post-tensioned beam-column timber joint using hardwood and the long-term behaviour of the system. The results of the experimental and numerical investigations provide reliable data for the development and validation of calculation models for the design of post-tensioned timber frames with hardwood for vertical and horizontal loads and taking into account the long-term behaviour. The objective of the research project is the development and implementation of post-tensioned timber frame structures into the practice and fits well into the overall research strategy of the institute on the development of innovative solutions for timber structures.
