Investigation of Grip Type Connection in Timber Structures

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ENGINEERING RESEARCH PLANNING
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Investigation of grip type connection in Timber structures
Research gap and questions
There are many studies and investigation have been conducted on timber structures. The
investigators exercised on timber-timber connections, steel to timber connections, round timber
connections, timber connections with multiple dowel-type fasteners, connections with glued-in
glass fibre reinforced polymer (GFRP), connections with very high strength steel dowels to find
its failure modes.
In contrast, also researched to improve its load carrying characteristics of connections as well as
whole timber structure performance structurally. The current investigation main concept is to
find out the load carrying capacity of the grip type connection as compared to the load carrying
of other timber connections, which will be discussed in the literature review. At the end of this
research, the experiment results will show and discuss the findings and make a conclusion and
recommendations.
Stakeholder and Benefits
The following people are stakeholders under this research
1. The Timber construction Builders: the connections can be made easier, as a result, the
speed of built increases.
2. Researchers can have scope to further improvements using different shapes and sizes of
connections.
3. Structural Timber production companies: prefabrication of this type of specimens
increases the productivity of structural timber.

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The findings of this research paper will be of great importance to different parties involved in
timber construction. They will be able to understand the load carrying capacity of different
timber connections which will enable them to know which connection to be used in a given
situation.
Scope
Timber is a construction material which is used widely in the construction industry, this is due to
the fact that timber is a renewable resource and at the same time the low energy requirement to
produce timber. The application of timber in the construction industry is likely to grow at a much
faster rate due to current environmental issues of global warming. In structural timber
engineering, connections are the weakest part of the structure, this has been attributed to the non-
linear mechanical behavior and wood anisotropy (Madsen, 2010, p. 237).
There are numerous types of joints in timber structures and the majority of them are
mechanically fastened. The application of dowels, bolts or plates generally induces a reduction
of timber's cross-section jointed areas. Hence timber with large cross sections is necessary to
satisfy the members as well as the joint designs. This thesis will focus on Investigating the grip
type connection in timber structures in order to find out the load bearing capacity, timber
stiffness and bending moments of the Grip-type connection in timber structures (Köhler, 2010, p.
77).
All the connection in building constructed form timber are constructed and designed in a unique
way to transfer the loads from the super structure to the ground below. When analyzing
buildings made from timber it is important to be clear about the forces which are to be resisted

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and at the same time the loads which needs to be transferred to the ground (Thelandersson,
2011, p. 321).
The study will involve carrying out a thorough literature review which will be related to timber
connections and failure modes, preparing specimen with the grip-type connections, the Testing
capacity of the connection under a static load and analyzing the results obtained and making a
conclusion regarding its efficiency. Different types of load which the timber connections are
exposed to will be discussed.
The thesis will also cover different elements which are used in the connection of timber; such as
nails, dowel, bolts, and screws. Their advantages and disadvantages will also be reviewed and
their areas of application will also be discussed. The properties of timber connections i.e.
flexibility, toughness, appearance, and strength will be researched about to determine the
performance of different types of timber connections.
This thesis also discusses the different types of timber connections that exist, whereby the
traditional and the modern ways of connecting timber are discussed. A lot of focus will be on the
grip-type timber connection which is the topic of research. With that different approaches will be
employed in collecting data relevant to the topic of research. Secondary sources such as books,
journals that contains data relevant to the topic of research will be reviewed. Any other
secondary sources which do not contain relevant data related to the topic of research will not be
reviewed since they will result in inaccurate data being collected.
Literature review
Introduction