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Michael Dorn
a,c,
, Karin de Borst
b
, Josef Eberhardsteiner
c
a
Linnaeus University, School of Engineering, Lckligs Plats 1, 351 95 Vxj, Sweden
b
University of Glasgow, School of Engineering, Rankine Building, Glasgow G12 8QQ, Scotland, United Kingdom
c
Vienna University of Technology, Institute for Mechanics of Materials and Structures, Karlsplatz 13/e202, 1040 Vienna, Austria
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Available online xxxx
Keywords:
Dowel-type timber connections
Johansen theory
Uniaxial tension tests on connections
Ductile and brittle failure modes
Inuence of density
Connection design and dowel roughness
Comparison with design rules in Eurocode 5
a b s t r a c t
Dowel-type connections are commonly used in timber engineering for a large range of structural appli-
cations. The current generation of design rules is largely based on empiricism and testing and lacks in
many parts a stringent mechanical foundation. This often blocks an optimized use of the connections,
which is essential for the design of economically efcient structures. Moreover, it severely limits the
applicability of the design rule, such as restrictions regarding splitting behavior or maximum ductility
(e.g. maximum allowable deformations) are missing. Therefore, the demands due to a large and quickly
evolving variety of structural designs in timber engineering are not reected.
The aim of this work is to study the load-carrying behavior of the connection in detail, including all
loading stages, from the initial contact between dowel and wood up to the ultimate load and failure. Dis-
tinct features during rst loading as well as during unloading and reloading cycles are identied and dis-
cussed. The knowledge of the detailed load-carrying behavior is essential to understanding the effects of
individual parameters varied in relation to the material and the connections design. The suitability of the
current design rules laid down in Eurocode 5 (EC5) is assessed and deciencies revealed.
Tests on 64 steel-to-timber dowel-type connections loaded parallel to the ber direction were per-
formed. The connections were single-dowel connections with dowels of twelve millimeter diameter.
The test specimens varied in wood density and geometric properties. Additionally, the effects of dowel
roughness and lateral reinforcement were assessed. The experiments conrmed that connections of
higher density show signicantly higher ultimate loads and clearly evidenced that they are more prone
to brittle failure than connections using light wood. The latter usually exhibit a ductile behavior with an
extensive yield plateau until nal failure occurs. With increased dowel roughness, both, ultimate load and
ductility are increased.
The test results are compared with corresponding design values given by EC5 for the strength and the
stiffness of the respective single-dowel connections. For connections of intermediate slenderness, EC5
provided conservative design values for strength. Nevertheless, in some of the experiments the design
values overestimated the actual strengths considerably in connections of low as well as high slenderness.
As for the stiffness, a differentiation according to the connection width is missing, which gives useful
results only for intermediate widths.
Furthermore, the test results constitute valuable reference data for validating numerical simulation
tools, which are currently a broad eld of intensive interest.
2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Dowel connections are common types of connections in timber
engineering. They are simple to produce and can be used for small
as well as for large forces. Fig. 1 shows a typical steel-to-timber
connection tested in the series of the experiments with a single
dowel.
1.1. Background
The mechanical behavior of these types of connections was rst
described scientically by Johansen [1]. Johansens theory distin-
guishes three different failure modes, but does not account for po-
tential brittle failure modes. With changes and adaptions, this
theory is the basis for the so-called European Yield Model which
is used in the current generation of design codes (Eurocode
1995-EC5) for timber structures [2]. However, this model lacks a
stringent mechanical basis. When determining the stiffness of
the connection, its thickness is not considered. Slim as well as thick
connections have equal stiffnesses which is not realistic. Moreover,
0141-0296/$ - see front matter 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.engstruct.2012.09.010
2
4M
y;Rk
f
h;1;k
dt
2
1
r
1
g
2:3
M
y;Rk
f
h;1;k
d
p
h
8
>
>
>
<
>
>
>
:
1
where (f), (g), and (h) denote the three characteristic failure modes
(see Fig. 2). The minimum of F
v,Rk
is always decisive. Mode f de-
scribes connections with a rigid dowel, g and h describe connections
of intermediate and high slenderness, respectively.
In the formulae, .
k
is the characteristic density of the wood in
kg/m
3
, t
1
the width of the wooden part in mm, f
h,1,k
= 0.082
(1 0.01d).
k
the characteristic embedment strength in N/mm
2
, d
the dowel diameter in mm, f
u,k
the characteristic tensile strength
of the dowel in N/mm
2
, and M
y,Rk
= 0.3f
u,k
d
2.6
the characteristic
plastic moment of the dowel in Nmm. The inconsistency of the
units in the formulae underlines their (to a large extent) empirical
origin. There are no restriction on the maximum allowable dis-
placements, and plastic deformations are allowed without limits.
Effects of lateral reinforcement or increased friction between wood
and dowel are not taken into account. For determining values in
Table 8, the tensile strength is f
u,k
= 708 N/mm
2
. The width
t
1
= (2a 10)/2 is half of the width of the wood net-section (see
Fig. 3 for dimensions).
In the formulae of EC5, most of the inuences studied in the
experiments are covered by the embedment strength f
h,1,k
, which
linearly depends on density. Additionally, the friction between
dowel and wood as well as a reduction of end length affect the
embedment strength. A variation of the connection slenderness is
captured by the direct inuence of the dowel diameter d and the
side width t
1
.
Fig. 16ac re-illustrate the test results, now classied according
to the connection slenderness. The shown forces are normalized to
.
avg
430 kg=m
3
F F.=.
avg
by means of the data included at
the bottomof Table 8. The gures clearly show the inuence of var-
ious parameters on the ultimate loads.
The comparison of the experimental results with the design val-
ues indicates that the design values are conservatively determined
for connections with intermediate slenderness, values for F
v,Rk
are
equal or below the experimental values. In connections with a rigid
dowel, the design value overestimate the measured connection
strength in Series 05 in some specimens. Very similar results are
found in connections of high slenderness where the strength is
underestimated for the standard conguration. The gures show
that a distinctively higher load than given by the design formulae
Fig. 15. Comparison of experimentally determined stiffnesses of selected tests with corresponding design values from EC5 for different widths: respective stiffness according
to EC5 (dashed lines), approximated stiffnesses for unloading and reloading (black lines, 55 kN/mm for all specimens with widths of 40 or 100 mm, 80 kN/mm for specimens
with widths of 200 mm).
Fig. 16. Comparison of strength of selected tests with design values from EC5 (normalized linearly to .
avg
430 kg=m
3
; F F.=.
avg
.
M. Dorn et al. / Engineering Structures xxx (2012) xxxxxx 11
Please cite this article in press as: Dorn M et al. Experiments on dowel-type timber connections. Eng Struct (2012), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/
j.engstruct.2012.09.010
by up to 40% can be achieved with engrailed dowels (Specimens
09A_2, 13_1, 15_3, 16D_1) or lateral reinforcement (Specimen
05B_1).
5. Conclusions
A comprehensive test series on single-dowel steel-to-timber
connections was carried out in order to build the required knowl-
edge and database for an improved connection design in timber
engineering. The tests delivered insight into the effects of geomet-
ric and material parameters on the load-carrying characteristics.
Distinctively different domains were described: initial consolida-
tion, rst loading, unloading and reloading cycles, ductile yield pla-
teau, and failure modes.
The comparison of the experiments with the current state of de-
sign in structural timber engineering in EC5 shows partially good
agreement of the design values with the test results. The distinc-
tion between the failure modes with the absence or creation of
plastic hinge(s) is in accordance with EC5. Design strength was
found to be conservatively dened for intermediate slenderness.
Fig. A.1. Loaddisplacement curves for all specimens of all series.
12 M. Dorn et al. / Engineering Structures xxx (2012) xxxxxx
Please cite this article in press as: Dorn M et al. Experiments on dowel-type timber connections. Eng Struct (2012), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/
j.engstruct.2012.09.010
In connections of low as well as high slenderness the design values
partially overestimated the actual experimental strengths. The po-
sitive effects of increased dowel roughness and lateral reinforce-
ment, which are not covered by the current design rules, were
shown in the tests. An increase of ultimate load and an extension
of the ductile yield plateau as well as improved resistance against
splitting failure is possible. A variation of the connection stiffness
following the later failure mode (Johansens classication accord-
ing to the number of plastic hinges in the dowel) is clearly ob-
served in the experiments.
In EC5, the connection width is not taken into account when
determining stiffness. Design stiffness is therefore clearly deter-
mined with insufcient accuracy and might lead to unreliable re-
sults in static design. Furthermore, the design rules do not
consider the varying stiffness of rst loading and (repeated)
unloading and reloading during the life-span of a structure. A suit-
able concept for assessing stiffness should be introduced in order
to represent the non-linear behavior during loading up to the Ulti-
mate Limit State. This relationship may be considerably different
for single and multi-dowel connections. In the latter, the statically
Fig. A.1. (continued)
M. Dorn et al. / Engineering Structures xxx (2012) xxxxxx 13
Please cite this article in press as: Dorn M et al. Experiments on dowel-type timber connections. Eng Struct (2012), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/
j.engstruct.2012.09.010
non-determinant load transfer results in different contributions of
the individual dowels to the overall stiffness.
Only a selected range of congurations and connection param-
eters were investigated herein. In order to build a solid foundation
for a re-formulation of design formulae, further test series should
be carried out. Variation parameters of interest include the dowel
diameter, loading at an angle to the ber direction of wood, the ef-
fects of defects such as knots, and the dowel number and dowel
arrangement when considering multi-dowel connections. Besides
experimental investigations, numerical simulations provide en-
hanced insight into the mechanical behavior of connections. In this
context, the work provides a good reference basis and enables to
validate simulation approaches across a large range of inuence
parameters. Own developments of suitable three-dimensional sim-
ulation tools are under way. The combination of numerical and
experimental efforts will be the key to establishing improved de-
sign rules for connections in timber engineering.
Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge the nancial support of the
Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG, Project No. 815234/
12791) and the wood industry partnership Building with Wood
within CEI-Bois for funding the research work within project
MechWood. This work forms part of that project. The MechWood
research partners are thanked for their cooperation and collabora-
tion in this project. Furthermore, the authors would like to thank
the Institute of Wood Science and Technology, University of Natu-
ral Resources and Applied Life Sciences, Vienna, Austria, for the
preparation of the specimens, the steel construction company Ze-
man & Co GmbH, Vienna, Austria, for providing the steel plates,
and the Research Center of Structural Concrete, Institute of Struc-
tural Engineering, Vienna University of Technology, Vienna, Aus-
tria, for providing testing equipment. In addition, we would like
to thank Dr. phil. Roland Reihsner (IMWS) for performing the tests
and for his help during preparation of the experiments.
Appendix A. Results of individual test series
Fig. A.1.
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Fig. A.1. (continued)
14 M. Dorn et al. / Engineering Structures xxx (2012) xxxxxx
Please cite this article in press as: Dorn M et al. Experiments on dowel-type timber connections. Eng Struct (2012), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/
j.engstruct.2012.09.010