Performance Evaluation of Midply and Standard Corner Joints of Wood Portal Frames

Abstract

Experimental results to determine the moment-resisting capacity of wood portal frame corner joints are presented in this paper. Two types of corner joints (standard and MIDPLY) were tested with different configurations. An L-shaped corner joint including a narrow braced wall segment and header was used as a test specimen. A total of 37 corner joints were tested. Test results showed that the installation of metal strap or the adding of exterior oriented strand board (OSB) sheathing, while using high-density wood product (LVL, LSL) as header increased the moment-resisting capacity of corner joints. Furthermore, the MIDPLY corner joint had higher moment capacity than the standard corner joint. The moment-carrying capacity of corner joints could be further increased by applying fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) on top of exterior OSB sheathing. A detailed finite element (FE) model of a corner joint is presented. The FE model predictions correlated well with the experimental results.