Fan-shaped Shear Dampers Strengthen Mortise-tenon Joints in Chinese Traditional Timber Structures
Bihui Dai, Yonglin Gao, Zhong Tao, Haihong Su, Hexian Su
Abstract
Looseness, deformation, and tenon pulled in the mortise-tenon joint constitute the primary causes of failure in traditional Chinese timber structure building. However, the introduction of the joint damper technology and installation of the fan-shaped shear damper at the mortise-tenon joints of traditional wooden structure solves these issues. Herein, we explored the strengthening effect of dovetail mortise-tenon joints with dampers. We designed six dovetail mortise-tenon joint models, three without dampers, and the other three were installed with dampers. Using the low cycle repeated loading test, we examined the hysteretic response, skeleton curve, stiffness degradation curve, and equivalent viscous damping coefficient curves of the six test models. Consequently, we established that the joint damper effectively controls the joint tenon pulled problem and enhances energy dissipation, strength, and rotational stiffness. Besides, the ultimate bearing capacity of the damper models was nearly four-fold that of models without dampers.