NUMERICAL ANALYSIS OF CIRCULAR NOTCHED CONNECTIONS ON CLT AND CONCRETE COMPOSITE PLATES

CLT-concrete composite plates, with a concrete layer on the upper surface, have optimized structural performance for flexural stiffness, dynamics, as well as, a better thermal, acoustic, and behavior against fire situation than CLT plates. Different kinds of timber and concrete connections have been studied for many years for unidirectional structural elements such as beams and for different applications. For CLT-concrete plates, a bidirectional analysis is required considering the two orthogonal directions of the plate. In this paper, circular notched connections are studied for the two orthogonal directions of CLT-concrete plates. Thicker internal layers for CLT are used in order to homogenize the strength and stiffness in both orthogonal directions of the plate for a biaxial load transfer instead of a uniaxial load transfer as they are generally used. A numerical analysis of the push-out tests of two different specimens simulating the connections in the orthogonal directions of CLT-concrete plates was performed for determining the stiffness and the slip modulus. The results showed that the values of the slip modulus were different for both longitudinal and transversal directions, that the notch depth has an influence on the slip modulus and that the circular geometry of the notch can be an interesting alternative for the two-way CLT-concrete plates.