Analytical and experimental evaluation of the capacity of the bottom rail in partially anchored timber shear walls

Källsner and Girhammar have developed plastic design methods for light-frame timber shear walls that can be used for determining the load-carrying capacity when the shear walls are partially anchored. For such walls, the leading stud is not fully anchored against uplift and tying down forces are developed in the sheathing-to-framing joints. Since the forces in the anchor bolts and the sheathing-to-framing joints do not act in the same vertical plane, the bottom rail will be subjected to cross-wise bending, leading to possible splitting along the bottom side of the rail. Another possible brittle failure mode is splitting along the edge of the bottom rail in line with the sheathing-to-framing fasteners. An experimental program has been conducted using different anchor bolt locations, washer sizes and pith orientations. A fracture mechanics approach for the two failure modes is used to evaluate the experimental results. The comparison shows a good agreement between the experimental and analytical results. The failure mode is largely dependent on the distance between the edge of the washer and the edge of the bottom rail. The size of the washer seems also to have some influence on the failure load. The fracture mechanics models seem to capture the essential behaviour of the splitting modes and to include the decisive parameters. These parameters can easily be adjusted to experimental results and be used in design equations for bottom rails in partially anchored shear walls.Godkänd; 2012; 20120905 (giucap