analysis and design of laminated veneer lumber beams with holes

315 Pages·2013·7.52 MB·English

ANALYSIS AND DESIGN OF LAMINATED VENEER
LUMBER BEAMS WITH HOLES

A thesis submitted as partial fulfilment of
the requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy in
Civil Engineering
by
Manoochehr Ardalany
Supervised by:
Prof. Andy Buchanan
Assoc. Prof. Massimo Fragiacomo
Dr. Bruce Deam
Assoc. Prof. Peter Moss

Department of Civil and Natural Resources Engineering
University of Canterbury
Christchurch, New Zealand

September 2012

Abstract
Timber has experienced new interest as a building material in recent times. Although
traditionally in New Zealand it has been the main choice for residential construction,
with recently introduced engineered wood products like Laminated Veneer Lumber
(LVL), the use of timber has developed to other sectors like commercial, industrial, and
multi-story buildings. The application of timber in office and commercial buildings
poses some challenges with requirements for long span timber beams yet with holes to
pass services. The current construction practice with timber is not properly suited for
the aforementioned types of structures.
There has been significant progress in designing timber structures since the introduction
of timber codes like NZ3603-Timber Structures Standard; however, there are still a
number of problems such as holes in beams not being addressed in the code.
Experimental and numerical investigation is required to address the problem properly.
In Europe, there have been a few attempts to address the problem of cutting holes and
strength reduction because of holes/penetrations in glulam beams. However, LVL has
not received much attention due to smaller production and use. While other researchers
are focusing on glulam beams with holes, this research is targeting LVL beams with
holes. This thesis extends existing knowledge on LVL beams with holes and
reinforcement around the holes through experimental tests and numerical analysis.
An experimental program on LVL specimens has been performed to indicate the
material properties of interest that will be used in the analysis and design chapters
through whole of the thesis. A wide-ranging experimental program was also performed
on beams with holes, and beams with reinforcement around the holes. The experimental
program pushes forward existing methods of testing by measuring the load in the
reinforcement.
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Analysis of LVL beams with holes using Linear Elastic Fracture Mechanics (LEFM)
and Nonlinear Fracture Mechanics (NLFM) has been performed and compared with
experimental results. Two dimensional finite element models (2D) and three-
dimensional finite element models (3D) are incorporated in ABAQUS and have been
used for analysis of beams with holes and reinforcement around the holes.
The theory of a beam on an elastic foundation is applied to beams with holes. Analytical
formulations are developed capable of predicting the cracking load (load associated
with crack initiation). For loads smaller than the cracking load, no reinforcement will be
required for the holes. Larger holes need reinforcing and a truss model is proposed for
derivation of analytical formulations for the tensile load predictions around holes.
It is concluded that the numerical and analytical models presented in this thesis are a
sound basis for analysis and design of LVL beams with holes and for the design of
reinforcement around the holes. However, future research is required to further verify
and improve these prediction models.

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Acknowledgements
There are so many that have contributed to this body of research, in so many ways, that
it is difficult to know where to begin. I will start by acknowledging the entire
Department of Civil and Natural Resources Engineering of the University of
Canterbury, New Zealand.
Specifically, I would like to thank my supervisors: Prof. Andy Buchanan, Assoc. Prof.
Massimo Fragiacomo, Dr. Bruce Deam, Prof. Keith Crews, and special thanks to Assoc.
Prof. Peter Moss that helped a lot in finalizing the thesis with his smart way of solving
problems.
Other academic staffs from the department that have guided my research include Assoc.
Prof. Stefano Pampanin, Prof. Athol Carr, Dr. David Carradine, Assoc. Prof. Misko
Cubrinovski, Assoc. Prof. Greg MacRae, Dr. Brendon Bradley, Dr. Alessandro
Palermo, Dr. Elizabeth Bowman, and Prof. Roger Nokes. Thank you for your guidance.
Special thanks to postgraduate students: Wouter van Beerschoten, Dennis Pau, Vindo
Sadashiva, Javad Arefi, Mostafa Nayyerlo, Arun Puthanpuria, Umut Akguzal, Daniel
Morder, and many others who are hard to remember.
To staff and lab technicians: Elizabeth Ackerman, Alan Joliffe, Louise Barton, Alan
Poynter, John Maley, Peter Coursey, Russel McConchie, Stuart Toase and many other
good technicians in Structural Lab that helped a lot with experimental set up and testing.
Thank you for your patience and efforts.
To past postgraduate students: Dr. David Yeoh, Dr. Umut Akgusel, Dr. Mike
Newcombe, and Dr. Asif Iqbal, thank you for all the time spent deliberating and your
friendship.
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I acknowledge contributions from researchers outside the University of Canterbury that
have contributed: Dr. Simon Aicher from Stuttgart University, Prof. Bob Leicester from
CSIRO, Australia, Dr. Joergen Jensen from University of Auckland, Prof. Per Johan
Gustafsson from University of Lund, Sweden, Dr. Stephen Franke from University of
Auckland, Dr. Bettina Franke from University of Auckland, Prof. Pierre Quenneville,
from University of Auckland, Dr. Thomas Bogensperger from Graz University of
Technology, Austria, Dr. Robert Finch from Structural Timber Innovation Company
(STIC), New Zealand, Dr. Marco Ballerini from the University of Treneto, Italy, and
postgraduate student Robert Jockwer from ETH, Zurich, Swiss.
The financial support of the Structural Timber Innovation Company (STIC), University
of Canterbury (UC) doctoral scholarship, Department of Civil Engineering scholarship,
and the European IRSES travel fund, enriched my research by allowing me to attend
several national and international conferences.
I would like to extend my deep appreciation to Assoc. Prof. Hooshang Dabbagh from
University of Kordestan, Iran who encouraged me to follow a PhD program.
Finally, I would like to thank my family, especially my mother and father, whom
tolerated of not seeing me for about four years, my brother Shahram whom made me
hopeful through my university study. My wife Nazanin whom pushed me forward to
finish my PhD studies on time. I have always felt your love and support in my heart.

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List of publications
During the course of this research, a number of publications have been made, which
are based on the work presented in this thesis. They are listed here for reference:
Journal papers
Ardalany, M., Deam, B. and Fragiacomo, M. (2012). "Experimental results of fracture
energy and fracture toughness evaluation of Radiata Pine Laminated Veneer Lumber
(LVL) in mode I (opening)." Journal of Materials and Structures RILEM 45(8): 1189-
1205.
Ardalany, M., Deam, B., Fragiacomo, M. and Carradine, D. (2012). "Experimental and
numerical analysis of hole placement in depth of Laminated Veneer Lumber (LVL)
beams." Australian Journal of Structural Engineering (AJSE): 1-11 (Accepted).
Ardalany, M., Fragiacomo, M., Deam, B. and Crews, K. (2012). "Analytical cracking
load estimation of Laminated Veneer Lumber (LVL) beams with holes." Journal of
Holz als Roh- und Werkstoff (Accepted).
Ardalany, M., Fragiacomo, M., Moss, P. and Deam, B. (2012). "A new model for
tensile load prediction in the reinforcement around the holes in shear dominant areas in
Laminated Veneer Lumber (LVL) beams." Journal of Materials and Structures RILEM
(Accepted): 1-32.
Ardalany, M., Carradine, D., Fragiacomo, M. and Deam, B. (2012). "Experimental tests
on Laminated Veneer Lumber (LVL) beams with holes and different methods of
reinforcement of the holes", Journal of Structures and Buildings (under review).

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Conference papers
Ardalany, M., Fragiacomo, M., Deam, B. and Buchanan, A. (2012), ―Design of
reinforcement around holes in Laminated Veneer Lumber (LVL) beams‖, World
Conference on Timber Engineering (WCTE 2012), P. Quenneville, Auckland, New
Zealand 1: 539-547.
Ardalany, M., Deam, B., Fragiacomo, M. and Crews, K. (2010). "Tension perpendicular
to grain strength of wood, Laminated Veneer Lumber (LVL) and Cross banded LVL
(LVL-C)." 21st Australasian Conference on the Mechanics of Structures and Materials:
891- 896.
Ardalany, M., Deam, B. and Fragiacomo, M. (2010). ―Numerical investigation of the
load carrying capacity of Laminated Veneer Lumber (LVL) joists with holes‖, World
Conference on Timber Engineering (WCTE 2010). Riva del Garda, Italy.
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Table of contents
Abstract .............................................................................................................................. i
Acknowledgements ......................................................................................................... iii
List of publications ........................................................................................................... v
Table of contents ............................................................................................................ vii
List of figures ................................................................................................................. xv
List of tables ................................................................................................................ xxvi
List of notation ............................................................................................................ xxix
Latin capitals ............................................................................................................... xxix
Latin lower case .......................................................................................................... xxxii
Greek ......................................................................................................................... xxxiv
Miscellaneous ............................................................................................................. xxxv
1 Introduction and literature review ............................................................................ 1
1.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................ 1
1.2 Background ........................................................................................................ 1
1.3 Motivation for the research ................................................................................ 4
1.4 General literature review on timber ................................................................... 4
1.5 Review of recent investigations ......................................................................... 6
1.6 Analysis of timber beam with holes .................................................................. 6
1.6.1 Finite element method ................................................................................ 8
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1.6.2 Fracture mechanics analysis ....................................................................... 9
1.7 Failure mechanisms ......................................................................................... 11
1.7.1 Failure mechanisms for rectangular holes ................................................ 11
1.7.2 Failure mechanisms for circular holes ...................................................... 12
1.8 Design of holes without reinforcement ............................................................ 13
1.8.1 Design according to draft of Eurocode 5 .................................................. 13
1.8.2 Design according to an empirical formulation ......................................... 15
1.8.3 Design according to Swiss code ............................................................... 16
1.8.4 Design according to DIN 1052 ................................................................. 17
1.9 Reinforcements around holes ........................................................................... 19
1.9.1 Swedish glulam handbook ........................................................................ 20
1.9.2 DIN 1052 .................................................................................................. 21
1.10 Objectives of the thesis ................................................................................ 21
1.11 Scope of the research ................................................................................... 22
1.12 Organization of the thesis ............................................................................. 22
1.13 Summary ...................................................................................................... 25
2 Material properties .................................................................................................. 26
2.1 Introduction ...................................................................................................... 26
2.2 Physical properties ........................................................................................... 27
2.2.1 Timber density .......................................................................................... 27
2.2.2 Moisture content ....................................................................................... 28
2.3 Mechanical properties ...................................................................................... 28
2.3.1 Orthotropic elasticity ................................................................................ 28
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