Numerical investigation of the structural behaviour of adhesive free connections utilising modified wood

Abstract

An investigation was carried out to examine the potential to use modified wood as a replacement for metallic connections in timber structures. In recent years, there have been several studies examining the potential to utilise modified wood to improve the performance of engineered wood products. This study describes the development of finite element models validated against a series of experimental tests on spliced beam-beam timber connections. The spliced beams are formed using compressed wood (CW) dowels and slotted-in CW plates providing an all-timber solution. A parametric study is utilised to optimise the design of spliced beam-beam timber connections utilising CW plates and dowels. The parameters studied were dowel arrangement, plate length, plate thickness, beam width and depth. The results indicate that connections using CW dowels and plates can be successfully modelled using finite element (FE) software. An optimised design has been developed to improve stiffness and moment rotation capacity of the connection system.