Fiber reinforced connections for timber members: an experimental study.

The use of FRP strips as connectors in glulam timber members is considered to be particularly promising, since the durability of the system is improved and the application is easier and faster due to the lightweight properties of FRP’s. In this paper an experimental campaign performed at the Politecnico di Milano aimed at characterizing the bond performance of FRP strips glued into glulam elements is presented. Pull-out tests were carried out on several specimens with respect to the following variables: bond length, FRP typology and direction of the FRP axis relative to that of the timber grain. Based on the experimental curves, the local bond-slip behaviour of the joint was obtained. A series of tests on full-scale glulam elements connected with corresponding FRP based joints were also carried out with the aim at characterizing their response both in service and ultimate conditions. Results were in agreement with the observations on failure modes obtained from small-size specimens.