Shear performance of steel-cross laminated timber connections with discretely grouted stud connectors
Abstract
To investigate the shear performance of steel-cross laminated timber (CLT) connections incorporating discretely grouted stud connectors (GSC), a total of thirty steel-CLT specimens were designed and tested, consisting of eight groups with GSC and two groups with grouted bolt connectors (GBC). The experimental variables included stud diameter, number of stud rows, row spacing, and loading protocol. Test results demonstrate that the typical failure modes for both the GSC and the GBC connections involved shear yielding or fracture of the connectors, pronounced embedment crushing of grout and CLT round the holes, and slight rotation of the grout blocks. Generally, all the tested specimens showed a typical load-slip response characterized by an initial linear elastic response, a subsequent non-linear hardening regime up to peak load and a yield plateau prior to failure. As the stud diameter increased from 13 mm to 19 mm, the load-carrying capacity of GSC connections increased approximately linearly, with enhancements of up to 55% under monotonical loading and 52.6% under unidirectional repeated loading, respectively. The corresponding slip modulus was improved by 21.4% and 78.4 % for monotonical and unidirectional repeated loading cases, respectively. Repeated loading resulted in a reduced slip modulus, indicative of cumulative damage induced by repeated loading. Finally, the newly proposed and existing analytical models were employed to predict the shear capacity of the connections and the predictions were systematically validated against the experimental results.
Reference
Guojun Liu; Zhibin Ling; Zhiwen Long; Chun Liu. (2026). Shear performance of steel-cross laminated timber connections with discretely grouted stud connectors. Elsevier BV. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.6614349
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