Experimental study on innovative connections for large span timber truss structures

In English This paper summarizes an experimental investigation on several innovative reinforcing techniques for the “Single Large Diameter Dowel Connection”, SLDDC in timber truss structures. Besides lateral reinforcing or prestressing, also steel plates glued on two sides of the glulam specimens were used as reinforcing measure. To study the efficiency of these techniques, 15 full-scale quasi-static tensile tests on glulam members with a SLDDC on either ends of each member were performed. It was found that the reinforcement significantly enhanced the bearing capacity of the SLDDCs. All of the reinforcing techniques showed a satisfactory efficiency, preventing splitting of wood. Moreover, most of the specimens remains showed a remarkable post failure strength.