Improved Analysis of Timber Rivet Connections

Abstract

Timber rivets are fasteners for glued-laminated timber construction that were first sanctioned for use in the United Stated by adoption in the 1997 National Design Specification for Wood Construction (NDS). Rivet connections can exhibit a brittle failure when a volume of wood bounded by the perimeter of the rivets pulls out from the timber, or a ductile failure due to a combination of fastener yielding and localized wood crushing. The NDS approach to the former failure mode is so complex that closed form solution is not possible and designers must refer to limited tabular data, and the NDS approach to the latter failure mode is inconsistent with the approach used for other dowel fasteners. This paper describes an improved analysis based on the capacity of wood failure planes and the well-established dowel fastener yield model. Results of tests of large rivet connections highlighting the crossover from ductile to brittle failure modes verify the analysis. In addition, these results provide the first data for timber rivets in Southern Pine glued-laminated timber.