Effect of Exposure to Elevated Tempeture on Dowel Bearing Strength of Mass Plywood Panels

Design of connections in mass timber are critical. Mass plywood panels (MPP) are a relatively new mass timber product, therefore, only a few studies characterizing their mechanical and connection properties exist. Dowel bearing strength is a critical parameter required in connection design regardless of the complexity of the connection. This study investigated the dowel bearing strength of MPP under the effect of exposure to elevated temperature. Thirty-two exposure duration-temperature combination was tested along with control group.  Two analytical models are developed to explain the thermal degradation, one assuming a mechanism based on first-order kinetics and the second using a statistical regression. The degradation in the dowel bearing strength with respect to the increase in time and temperature exposure was characterized. In general, the kinetics model seemed to explain the data better than MLR using one less parameter.