Frequencies Prediction of Laminated Timber Plates Using ANN Approach

Cross laminated timber(CLT)panels,which are used as load bearing plates and shear panels in timber structures,can serve as roofs,walls and floors.Since timber is construction material with relatively less stiffness,the design of such structures is often driven by serviceability criteria,such as deflection and vibration.Therefore,accurate vibration and elastic properties are vital for engineered CLT products.The objective of this research is to explore a method to determine the natural frequencies of orthotropic wood plates efficiently and fast.The method was developed based on vibration signal processing by wavelet to acquire the effective sample data,and a model developed by artificial neural network(ANN)to achieve the prediction of nature frequencies.First,experiments were performed to obtain vibration signals of single-layer plates.The vibration signals were then processed by wavelet packet transform to extract the eigenvectors,which served as the samples to train the ANN model.The trained model was employed to predict three nature frequencies of other test specimens.The results showed that the proposed method can produce predicted frequencies fast and efficiently within 10%of the measured values.

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.

Numerical Investigation of Connection Performance of Timber-Concrete Composite Slabs with Inclined Self-Tapping Screws under High Temperature

The timber-concrete composite(TCC)slabs have become a preferred choice of floor systems in modern multi story timber buildings.This TCC slab consisted of timber and a concrete slab which were commonly connected together with inclined self-tapping screws(STSs).To more accurately predict the fire performance of TCC slabs,the mechanical behavior of TCC connections under high temperature was investigated by numerical simulation in this study.The interface slip of TCC connections was simulated by a proposed Finite Element(FE)model at room temperature,and different diameter and penetration length screws were considered.The effectiveness of this FE model was validated by comparing with the existing experimental results.Furthermore,the sequentially coupling thermal stress analyses of this model were conducted,and the relationship between the reduction coefficient of connection performance and the effective penetration length of screws was summarized.This study gave the fit-ting expressions for the reduction coefficient of slip modulus and joint strength.Finally,the numerical investiga-tions of the fire performance of TCC slabs considering the char fall-off of Cross Laminated Timber(CLT)were performed to verify the effectiveness of the proposed reduction law.Comparing the fire-resistance time with experimental results showed deviation of the proposed model was−14.02%.

Performance of Densified Wood Glulam as Building Bio-Material

In this research,some practical aspects of densified wood glulam were investigated.For this aim,poplar wood specimens were densified by hygro-thermo-mechanical technique.Glulam specimens were produced by finger joint technique and polyurethane glue was used as resin.Physical and mechanical properties of glulams were investigated according to ASTM D 143-09,ASTM D 905-03 and ISO 8375 standards.Based on obtained results,using this process(steam and pressurize compaction)resulted in improvement of physical and mechanical prop-erties of glulam specimens.Optical microscopic and scanning electron microscopic(SEM)pictures were proved structural changes on wood material during of applied technique.Generally,the increase of wood density and hygrothermal treatment has a positive role on the glulam properties especially its dimensional stability.This tech-nique showed a significant effect on water absorption;the steaming temperature and holding time significantly decreased water absorption but densification process increased this parameter.Also,delamination of specimens was decreased by hygrothermal treatment while densification showed negative effect on delamination.Moreover,modulus of rupture,modulus of elasticity,shear strength and compression strength parallel to grain were decreased by this technique but it is depend to treatment temperature and holding time.Higher temperature and holding time cause to higher decrease in the glulam mechanical strength.