Development of All-Wood Connections with Plywood Flitch Plate and Oak Pegs

This paper proposes a new method for beam-beam connections, which include plywood as slot-in plates connected by oak pegs. A total of 96 specimens were fabricated for tests to explore the minimum required end distances and spacing between pegs parallel to the grain. A new failure mode, termed shear wedge that is different from those found in previous research, was found. A spring model was also proposed in this study to investigate the stiffness of the connections, and feasibility of EC5 to be applied on the new proposed connections was also examined. The effective number was discussed in this study and modified in accordance to the experimental results. The result of this study shows the new connections proposed do not lead to brittle failure unless failure in plywood occurred.