Evaluation of Splitting Capacity of Bottom Rails in Partially Anchored Timber Frame Shear Walls

Sammanfattning: The horizontal stabilization of timber frame buildings is oftenprovided by shear walls. Plastic design methods can be used todetermine the load-carrying capacity of fully and partially anchoredshear walls. In order to use these methods, a ductile behaviour of thesheathing-to-framing joint must be ensured. If hold-downs are notprovided, the vertical uplifting forces are transferred to the substrate bythe fasteners of the sheathing-to-framing joints. Since the forces in theanchor bolts and the sheathing-to-framing joints do not act in the samevertical plane, the bottom rail will be subjected to bending in thecrosswise direction, and splitting of the bottom rail may occur. If thebottom rail splits the applicability of the plastic design method forpartially anchored shear walls is questionable. This doctoral thesisaddresses the problem of brittle failure of the bottom rail in partiallyanchored timber frame shear walls.The first part of the study comprised of two basic experimentalprograms, for single-sided and double-sided sheathed shear walls. Theaim was to evaluate the different failure modes and the correspondingsplitting capacity of the bottom rail. Two brittle failure modes wereobserved: (1) a crack opening from the bottom surface of the bottomrail; and (2) a crack opening from the side surface of the bottom railalong the line of the fasteners of the sheathing-to-framing joints. It wasfound that the distance between the washer edge and the loaded edgeof the bottom rail has a decisive influence on the type of failure modeand the maximum failure load of the bottom rail.Two theoretical models for the load-carrying capacity for each typeof failure mode based on a fracture mechanics approach are studied andvalidated. The two analytical closed-form solutions are in goodagreement with the test results. The fracture mechanics models seem tocapture the essential behaviour and to include the decisive parametersof the bottom rail. These parameters can easily be determined and thefracture mechanics models can be used in design equations for bottomrails in partially anchored shear walls. Also, an extended fracturemechanics model for the load-carrying capacity for each type of failuremode is presented and evaluated.The present study discusses the splitting behaviour of the bottom railand provides methods to determine the splitting capacity for two brittlefailure modes, splitting of the bottom surface (mode 1) and of the sidesurface of the rail (mode 2). By these means brittle failure of thebottom rail can be avoided and the full plastic load-carrying capacity ofthe sheathing-to-framing joints can be utilized.