Rivets are hardened nails with an oval rectangular cross section for making high strength connections in timber structures. The timber rivet connection is definitely one of the best fasteners due to its high strength capacity and its ability to behave in a ductile manner. It is also a cost effective alternative to bolted connections. Rivets are part of the Canadian and U.S. structural wood design standards, however in the current standards there is no closed form solution for the strength prediction. Also, the standards restrict the use of rivets to specific configurations and for glulam and sawn timber of some limited species. A simple close-form analytical method to determine the resistance of wood in rivet connection in timber products is proposed. For the wood strength, the stiffness and strength of the planes subjected to shear and tension stresses are taken into account. Also, a rational algorithm is presented which allows the designer to predict the different possible brittle, ductile and mixed failure modes. Results of tests on New Zealand Radiata Pine laminated veneer lumber and data available from literature confirm the validity of this new method and show that this closed form analytical method can be used as design provision for timber riveted connections. The proposed method can be extended to other small dowel type fastener; e.g. nails and screws for connection design improvement and failure modes prediction.
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