In the field of the built heritage restoration, engineers have to work with old structures made of badly preserved timber elements. The assessment of timber elements and connections is a major issue for engineers involved in a restoration project. Before thinking about any intervention technics, engineers have to properly understand how the carpentry connections fail, which parameters influence the failure modes (geometry of the joint, mechanical properties of the wood,…) and how the internal forces are distributed into the joint to finally figure out how to design the traditional carpentry connections. The present paper aims to raise those questions focusing on the Single Step Joint design. Even if this common joint between the rafter and the tie beam is geometrically simple, one may pick up three geometrical configurations of Simple Notched Joints from the past till today: the geometrical configuration ideal (GCID), the geometrical configuration perpendicular to the tie beam (GCPTB) and the geometrical configuration perpendicular to the rafter (GCPR). The first one is more recent because it requires a highest accuracy production, and so the use of the new technologies (e.g., CNC). For each one, some general design rules about the geometrical parameters of the Single Step Joint are defined by some European standards (Siem and Jorissen, 2015), but no one details how to design this connection to prevent shear cracks at the heel depth or the compressive crushing at the joint contact surfaces. Hence the design rules and the emergence of failure modes according to the geometrical parameters of the Simple Notched Joint must be defined. In order to check the design equations and the failure modes, lab tests about the three geometrical configurations of the Single Step Joint have been carried out, varying the heel depth, the shear length and the inclination of the rafter.

In a healthcare context, the success of a fire safety procedure in a real-life emergency mainly depends on staff decisions and actions. One of the factors influencing staff decision-making is their training. In most healthcare facilities, safety educators use slide-based lectures as a training tool. Virtual Reality (VR) is gaining fire safety community attention for being an interesting training tool. However, few studies have assessed the effectiveness of VR-based fire safety training simulators compared with a slide-based lecture. The present research proposes a novel non-immersive VR-based training for healthcare fire safety education. This paper describes the prototyping steps required to develop a nonimmersive VR serious game (SG) to train the staff of Vincent Van Gogh (VVG) hospital in Belgium.The paper finally validates the VR SG comparing its effectiveness against slide-based lecture training. 78 staff from VVG hospital in Belgium participated in this study. They were divided into two groups: Group A was trained using a slide-based lecture, and Group B was trained using the VR SG. The results indicated that the VR SG was more effective than the slide-based lecture in terms of knowledge acquisition and retention and in terms of self-efficacy increment in short and long terms than the slidebased lecture.

h i g h l i g h t sJoints play a major role in the structural behavior of old timber frames. Lack of design rules regarding the reinforcement of carpentry joints. Some calculation rules and possible strengthening techniques are presented. a b s t r a c t

Since the 80's, Johanssen's Yield Theory has been adapted to fit new design practices: fastening of timber elements with a layer of insulation (or gap) between the elements or fastening with inclined fasteners. However no rules exist for connections with large gaps (up to 500 mm) and inclined fasteners. The behaviour of screwed connections (timber/large gap/timber) is modelled using an orthotropic material, cohesive surface, Hill criterion and a fictitious material that wraps the screw and models a complex medium where steel and wood interact. The calibrated FE model is finally compared to experimental results.

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