CLT Shear Walls Anchored with Shear-Tension Angle Brackets: Experimental Tests and Finite-Element Modeling

Abstract

Due to the high in-plane stiffness and strength capacity of cross-laminated timber (CLT) panels, the mechanical behavior of CLT shear walls is mainly influenced by the mechanical performances of the connections. Several calculation models have been proposed considering the mechanical anchors effectiveness only along their primary direction. However, recent studies showed a relatively high stiffness and capacity of new typologies of angle brackets when subjected to uplift vertical loads, such as for the wall-to-floor Titan V (TTV) angle bracket, developed to obtain high mechanical performances along both the vertical-tensile and horizontal-shear direction. In this paper a study on CLT shear walls anchored with TTV angle bracket is presented. The aim of the work is to investigate the effects of the coupled shear-tension behavior of the connections at the wall level and the effectiveness of TTV as an alternative to traditional mechanical anchors. The paper presents results from full-scale experimental tests and finite-element (FE) numerical analyses in SAP2000, where an innovative macroelement has been developed to model the TTV coupled shear-tension behavior. The effects of the plastic load redistributions of the TTV angle bracket on the global mechanical behavior of the CLT shear wall are discussed.