Stiffness and Shear Stress Distribution of Glulam Beams in Elastic-Plastic Stage: Theory, Experiments and Numerical Modelling

Traditional methods focus on the ultimate bending moment of glulam beams and the fracture failure of materials with defects, which usually depends on empirical parameters. There is no systematic theoretical method to predict the stiffness and shear distribution of glulam beams in elastic-plastic stage, and consequently, the failure of such glulam beams cannot be predicted effectively. To address these issues, an analytical method considering material nonlinearity was proposed for glulam beams, and the calculating equations of deflection and shear stress distribution for different failure modes were established. The proposed method was verified by experiments and numerical models under the corresponding conditions. Results showed that the theoretical calculations were in good agreement with experimental and numerical results, indicating that the equations proposed in this paper were reliable and accurate for such glulam beams with wood material in the elastic-plastic stage ignoring the influence of mechanic properties in radial and tangential directions of wood. Furthermore, the experimental results reported by the previous studies indicated that the method was applicable and could be used as a theoretical reference for predicting the failure of glulam beams.