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Author
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Seyed Armin Hosseini
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University
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University of Northern British Columbia, Canada |
Based on 4-point and 3-point bending tests, the glued splines had the highest rotational stiffness, followed by the STS spline and T-joints. The steel rebar and X-fix connections had the lowest rotational stiffness. In terms of ductility, the glued spline exhibited brittle behavior, others displayed a moderate level of ductility, and the steel rebars provided high ductility. The STS spline and glued spline had similar bending moment capacities, with the glued spline's capacity being affected by the plywood quality. The steel rebars, T-joint, and X-fix connections had 70%, 50%, and 23% of this capacity, respectively.
Subsequently, a numerical model, validated by the experimental results, was used to evaluate the connection demands for point-supported CLT floors in the minor direction for different dimensions and applied loads. Increasing the rotational stiffness from 500 to 5000 kNmrad⁻¹m⁻¹ significantly improved the floor's structural performance, reducing the deflection by about 50%. Further increasing the rotational stiffness only yielded an additional decrease in deflection of 15%. With the tested configurations, both glued and screwed splines can provide 5000 kNmrad⁻¹m⁻¹; T-joints could potentially achieve this value, while an unreasonably high number of connectors would be necessitated for the X-fix.