Experimental Study of Behaviour of Panel-to-Lumber Nail Connections in Light Wood Frame Construction

Abstract:

Totally 60 specimens of panel-to-stud nail connections were designed and manufactured.Tests of the specimens both under monotonic loading and cyclic loading were conducted.Except for a few specimens that failed due to rupture of the structural panel,most nail connections failed following yield mode M-c1,which was consistent with Eurocode 5-Design of timber structures.The angle between the panel orientation and the grain of dimension lumber affects the performance of nail connections to some extent,while with the increasing of the conditioning time,the effect decreases and eventually become negligible.The load-carrying capacity and stiffness of nail connections decrease with the conditioning time.The load-carrying capacity of the nail connections increases slightly under cyclic loading,whilst the stiffness decreases,and both of them tend to be stable after a number of cycles of loading.A formula to evaluate the stiffness of the nail connections considering the stiffness degeneration is obtained from statistics of the experimental results.