Experimental Investigations on the Shear Resistance of Existing Glulam Structures

Numerous large-span, load-bearing structures, e.g. for public venues, sports halls or industrial facilities, utilize glued-laminated timber (glulam) due to its versatility and aesthetic appearance. Since glulam is an organic and composite material consisting of wooden lamellas joined with glue, mistakes during planning, fabrication and use of the structure can lead to deficiencies or even damages. Following a visual inspection suitable to detect surface deterioration, further holistic investigation of the glulam material is necessary to appraise structural safety or estimate the need for restoration. Besides the integrity of the wooden lamellas, the glue bond of the lamellas is vital for the operational reliability of glulam. A currently practiced, semi-destructive assessment method to revalue the condition of the glue lines consults a shear test on drill core samples with included glue line. The presented paper links this method to medium-scale shear tests and large-scale 3-Point bending-shear tests representing a practical loading situation. To provoke shear failure during bending, reinforcements of the specimens at critical tension and compression zones included glued-on beech veneer lamellas and self-tapping screws, respectively. ... mehrExecuted on the same sample material, shear resistance was determined for all three testing formats. The sampling included aged and new glulam. Published values derived from comparable test programs augmented the database. Based on the evaluated test results of the drill cores under shear loading, suggestions regarding the drill core extraction and the implementation of the valuation method of EN 14080 are outlined. After incorporating a size effect to account for varying dimensions of the bendingshear specimen, their shear resistance values correlated well with the obtained values from the drill core tests. This adumbrates the possibility to derive the shear resistance of structural members from shear values of drill core samples taken from an existing glulam structure.