Variability Analysis of Rotational Behavior of Bolted Glulam Beam-to-Column Connections

Bolted glulam beam-to-column connections often exhibit notable variability due to the variation of material properties and manufacture tolerances. Variability analysis was conducted to determine the key factors of variability and establish the prediction models of the initial stiffness and moment resistance of the connections. Variance analysis results indicate that, regarding the initial stiffness of the connections, the elastic modulus (parallel- and perpendicular-to-wood-grain directions) of the wood foundation model had a significant impact, and the bolt hole clearance is also influential to the initial stiffness to a certain extent. The tension strength perpendicular-to-wood-grain and longitudinal shear strength have a significant effect on the variance of the connection’s moment resistance, and the bolt hole clearance also has an influence on the connection’s moment resistance. Simulated results regarding randomly generated samples show that the response surface equations can be used to accurately predict the connection initial stiffness and the moment resistance.