Shear Behaviors of Steel-Plate Connections for Timber-Concrete Composite Beams with Prefabricated Concrete Slabs

To promote the development of timber-concrete composite(TCC)structures,it is necessary to propose the assembly-type connections with high assembly efficiency and shear performances.This article presented the experimental results of the innovative steel-plate connections for TCC beams using prefabricated concrete slabs.The steel-plate connections consisted of the screws and the steel-plates.The steel-plates were partly embedded in the concrete slabs.The concrete slabs and the timber beams were connected by screws through the steel-plates.The parameters researched in this article included screw number,angle steel as the reinforcement for anchoring,and shallow notches on the timber surface to restrict the slip of the steel-plates.Experimental results were discussed in terms of failure modes,ultimate bearing capacities,and slip moduli.It was found that increasing the number of screws could lead to the obvious improvement on the ultimate bearing capacities and the slip moduli at the ultimate state;and the angle steel as the reinforcement showed the slight influence on the ultimate bearing capacities and the slip moduli.The application of the shallow notch can greatly improve the ultimate bearing capacities and the slip moduli.The calculation models for the ultimate bearing capacities and the slip moduli of the steel-plate connections with and without shallow notches were proposed,which showed good accuracy compared with the experimental results.

Experimental Investigation on the Strength and Ductility Performance of Steel-Timber-Steel Joints with Screw and Steel-Tube Fasteners

This article presents experimental results of steel-timber-steel(STS)joints loaded parallel to grain.Eight groups of specimens were designed,and tensile tests were performed.The fastener types and fastener numbers were considered to evaluate the tensile strengths and ductility performances of the STS joints.The screws with 6 mm diameter and the innovative steel-tubes with 18 mm diameter were adopted as connecting fasteners.The experimental results were discussed in terms of yielding and ultimate strengths,slip stiffness,and ductility factors.The ductility classification and failure mechanisms of each group of specimens were analyzed.It was demonstrated that the STS joint with large diameter steel-tubes showed acceptable ductility,which was close to the ductility of the STS joint with small diameter screws,thanks to the hollow structure of the steel-tube.The theoretical strengths of various failure modes for the joints with small diameter screws or large diameter steel-tubes were calculated and compared with the experimental results.The ductile performance of the STS joint was discussed by comparing the theoretical strengths of various failure modes.The effective number of the STS joint with multifasteners was also analyzed by considering the failure mechanisms in aspects of tensile strength and slip stiffness.

Pull-out Behaviour of Axially Loaded Screwed-in Threaded Rods Embedded in CLT Elements: Experimental Study

Experimental investigation on the pull-out behaviour,including the withdrawal capacity,slip stiffness and inter-facial shear stress,of axially loaded screwed-in threaded rod embedded in cross laminated timber(CLT)was con-ducted.Specimens with varying embedment length and different number of threaded rods were tested in this study.To prevent premature splitting failure of timber,some specimens were reinforced in the direction perpen-dicular to the timber grain with self-tapping screws.Test results showed that the screwed-in threaded rod con-nections exhibited good pull-out behaviour with high withdrawal capacity and slip stiffness.Within a certain range,the withdrawal capacity increases considerably with the increase of embedment length,while the average interfacial shear stress shows the opposite tendency.The self-tapping screws played an important role on reducing the splitting of the timber and improving the withdrawal capacity and slip stiffness of the screwed-in threaded rod.Additionally,for the specimens with self-tapping screw reinforcements,the improvement of withdrawal capacity and stiffness when increasing the number of threaded rods are much more obvious than that of the speci-mens without the self-tapping screws,due to the change of failure modes.

Experimental Evaluation of Flexural Behavior of Stress Laminated Timber Decks

Stress laminated timber(SLT)deck is assembled using timber(umber or glulam)components placed side by side and stressed together,which has the advantages of easy prefabrication and good cost performance.This work pre-sented an experimental investigation of bending tests per formed on SLT slabs.Several parameters,including pre-stress levels,distance of pre-stressing bars,and the existence of self tapping screw(STS)reinforcement,were taken into consideration.To reinforce the compressive property of timber perpendicular to the grain,the STSs were placed under the anchor plate of the pre-stressed bars.The experimental results were analyzed and discussed in terms of failure modes,ultimate bearing capacity,ultimate strain,and bending sifness.It was found that the SLT slab showed satisfactory composite action as well as resid ual bearing capacity.The pre stress levels showed an obvious effect on the load bearing capacity and relatively slight effect on the bending stiffness.