SHEAR TESTS ON PERFOBOND CONNECTIONS IN TIMBER CONCRETE COMPOSITES

Abstract

With an increase in trend to integrate more wood into the construction industry, timber concrete composite (TCC) solutions are an efficient manner to overcome the limitations of timber. In the current literature, there are various connections that have been investigated for TCC systems. One with sufficient performance to target massive constructions is still limited. In this paper the use of the Perfobond connector, originally developed for steel concrete composite (SCC), is explored in TCC. The connection consists of a discrete steel plate with dowel action in the concrete side. For TCC an adjustment of gluing a part of the Perfobond to the timber member is made. Experimental investigation with the variable of a few parameters such as, different types of concrete and surface roughness of the Perfobond (bonded in the timber part) is performed. As a result of this experimental work, it is possible to observe that the Perfobond connector is performant in terms of both strength and stiffness. The results of this work indicate that, by using the most optimal design of a Perfobond connector, a performant connection can be introduced to TCC which makes it possible to target longer spans.