Novel nail-like wood connectors

In traditional timber structures, hardwood connectors such as a nails, wedges, dowels and pegs have been used as reinforcement of carpentry joints or to fix wooden ceiling matts or floor boards. In the study reported, the possibility to rely on enhanced mechanical and technological properties of densified wood, for the production of wooden nails to be used in the repair of traditional timber structures is discussed. The wood used for connectors were domestic wood species; ash, beech, black locust and poplar. Wooden blocks were exposed to densification procedure with the purpose of increasing the material's density, dimensional stability and possibly, improve durability and selected mechanical properties. The densification ratio varied between 50 and 67%. A dedicated research has been performed in order to determine the effect of densification on the compression behavior of wood in the form of nails. The progress of pushing force during insertion of the wooden nails into wood samples was also monitored and served for insertion process control. A preliminary series of push-out tests have been carried out on timber-to-timber joints assembled with the densified nails. The results obtained show potential for using the novel wooden nail connectors for substitution or integration repair works in traditional timber systems. © (2013) Trans Tech Publicutions, Switzerland.