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threaded rods
Jean‐François BOCQUET*, Charles BARTHRAM*, Arnaud PINEUR**
*LERMAB, ENSTIB, Henri Poincare University, 88000 Epinal, France
**Greisch Ingénierie LIEGE science park Allée des Noisetiers 25 4031 LIEGE Belgium
Since Johansen’s work [1], a set of researches have converged to advance the
design of timber joints. This approach is now integrated to the Eurocode 5 [2] leaving
the least possible to empiricism. The design of timber joints is based on the ductile
embedment behaviour of wood, on the plastic behaviour of the steel fasteners and on
the spacing and edge‐end distances which should provide the plastic threshold is
reached. Jorissen [3] and Quenneville and Mohammad [4] state that when
connections are subject to tension, three principal brittle failure modes can appear:
row splitting, row shearing and block shear or plug shear failures.
Block shear or plug shear takes into account the fragile properties of wood in
longitudinal tension and shear. It estimates the load bearing capacity of the whole
connected area. The failure is governed by the strongest of the tensile or shear
resistance of the connected area. Hanhijärvi et al. [5] comforted and affined this
approach. However, they state that it is difficult to predict the failure mode (splitting
or shear block) due to the variability of the strength of wood in transverse tension. It
is therefore necessary to reinforce the connections across the grain to be able to
guarantee the failure mode is block shear or plug shear.
To limit the effect of splitting it has been shown by various authors [6‐7] that it
is possible to transversally reinforce the connections by screws. They showed that
transverse reinforcement was an efficient way to limit splitting in dowelled
connections subject to tension. More recently, Lam et al. [8] have studied connections
composed of 4 bolts reinforced by screws subject to a bending moment and shearing
forces. They showed that reinforcing increased the ductility of the connections.
Beyond the authors’ conclusions, we can see that the brittle failure modes are clearly
identifiable. The failure of the specimen is either a net section bending failure or an
“L” shaped bloc failure. Let us note that this last type of failure is potentially weaker
than the first mode and should therefore be chosen as the design failure mode when
dowelled connections are subject to bending moments.
In order to confirm these observations and establish an “L” bloc shear failure
criterion, a first series of dowelled connections was tested [9]. We tested 4 dowelled
connections comprising 46 dowels of 16 mm diameter distributed on two concentric
circular patterns. The specimens were composed of 2 glulam beams of section
80*1000 mm connected to a third having a section of 160*1000 mm. All but the first
specimen were reinforced across the grain by SFS WB 16 mm rods inserted in pre‐
drilled holes. The number and the location of the reinforcement rods varied from one
specimen to another. These connections were subjected to pure bending in order to
favour the effect of shearing forces. These experiments showed that the
reinforcement was able to prevent splitting due to transverse tension which appeared
at a lower load for the un‐reinforced specimen. “L” shear bloc failure was observed
for the three reinforced specimens at moments of about 500 kN.m.
Extra tests were performed to validate the design of the connections of the roof
structure of the Louis Vuitton Fondation currently being built in Paris [10]. These
connections join the timber beams to steel elements. Six reinforced connections were
tested. These specimens were constituted of 400*1200 mm larch glulam beams
reinforced by SFS WB 16 mm rods. The connection was composed of 220 stainless
steel dowels of 16 mm diameter distributed on a rectangular grid connecting the
beams to the slotted in steel plates. To favour shear bloc failure in the connection,
three tests were performed in three‐point bending. Two beams were sawn over a
third of their width to artificially take into account the coefficient kcr proposed in the
amendment A1 [11]. They were tested in four‐point bending to favour shear in the
connection. The last specimen was tested in four‐point bending at a moisture content
higher than the fibre saturation point. “L” shear bloc failure was observed for
moments close to 3500 kN.m for all the connections tested. This is due to the fact that
no transverse tension failures and no row failures occurred thanks to transverse
reinforcement.
Our results show that if a suitable transverse reinforcement is adopted it is
possible to limit the effect of transverse tension, this favours an “L” shaped failure
mode for which a design rule is proposed.
[1] Johansen K.W. (1949) ‐ Theory of timber connections. International association of bridge and
structural engineering, vol 9, pp. 249–62.
[2] NF EN 1995‐1 (2005) ‐ Conception et calcul des structures en bois – Partie 1.1 : Généralités – Règles
communes et règles pour le bâtiment.
[3] Jorissen A.J.M. (1996) ‐ State of the art : symmetrical timber connections with dowel type fasteners
in double shear. Delft University of technology 4‐96‐5/MFJ‐3.
[4] Quenneville J.H.P., Mohammad M. (2000) ‐ On the failure modes and strength of steel‐to‐timber
bolted connections loaded parallel‐to‐the grain. Can.J.Eng., vol. 27, pp. 761‐763.
[5] Antti Hanhijärvi, Ari Kevarinmäki (2008) ‐ Timber failure mechanisms in high‐capacity dowelled
connections of timber to steel. Experimental results and design‐ESPOO 2008 VTT Publications 677‐
ISBN 978‐951‐38‐7090‐4 (URL:http://www.vtt.fi/publications/index.jsp).
[6] Bejtka I. (2005) ‐ Verstärkungen von Bauteilen aus Holz mit Vollgewindeschrauben. Dissertation,
Lehrstuhl für Ingenieurholzbau und Baukonstruktionen, Universität Karlsruhe, Germany.
[7] Blass H.J., Bejtka I., Uibel T. (2006) ‐ Tragfähigkeit von Verbindungen mit selbstbohrenden
Holzschrauben mit Vollgewinde. Karlsruher Berichte zum Ingenieurholzbau 4, Universität Karlsruhe,
Germany. als Holzverbindungsmittel. Deutsches Institut für Bautechnik, Berlin.
[8] Lam F., Wrede M. C., Yao C.C., Gu J. J. (2010) ‐ Moment resistance of bolted timber connections
with perpendicular to grain reinforcements. The University of British Columbia Vancouver, BC,
Canada.
[9] Chambon N., Charnot N (2009) ‐ Vérification d’assemblages en cisaillement. PFE ENSTIB / SFS
INTEC, ENSTIB, France.
[10] Bocquet J. F. (2011) ‐ Rapport d’essais des assemblages sur blocs des verrières de la Fondation
Louis Vuitton. 122p, ENSTIB, France.
[11] NF EN 1995‐1‐1/A1 (2008) ‐ Conception et calcul des structures en bois – Partie 1.1 : Généralités –
Règles communes et règles pour le bâtiment.