Comparison of glulam post-to-beam connections reinforced by two different dowel-type fasteners

In this paper, the performance improvement of glulam post-to-beam connections reinforced by plain round rods (PRRs) and self-tapping screws (STSs) were compared. Five non-reinforced post-to-beam bolted connections, five PRR-reinforcing connections and five STS-reinforcing connections were experimentally investigated under monotonic and low frequency cyclic loading. Their stiffness, ductility, moment resistance capacity, failure modes and seismic behavior were analyzed. The findings indicated that both of these two reinforcements could mitigate wood splitting, and change the failure mode from brittle failure to ductile failure. The maximum moment and failure rotation of PRR-reinforcing connection were increased by 29% and 6% respectively, compared with those of non-reinforced connection. In addition, those of STS-reinforcing connection increased by 86% and 145% respectively. Furthermore, the comparison of PRR-reinforcing and STS-reinforcing connections indicated that the connection ductility reinforced by self-tapping screws enhanced more significantly; 106% higher than that of PRR-reinforcing connection. Moreover, under the low frequency cyclic loading, PRR-reinforcing and STS-reinforcing connections dissipated more energy (336% and 641% respectively) with a lower stiffness degeneration rate and a higher equivalent viscous damping ratio than those of non-reinforced connection. Besides, the dissipation energy and equivalent viscous damping ratio of STS-reinforcing connection were larger than those of PRR-reinforcing connection.