Experimental and Numerical Studies on Repaired Wooden Beam of Traditional Buildings in Huizhou Region, China

Abstract

In this study, three different repair methods are proposed for the common broken parts of traditional wooden beams. Four wooden beams without initial damage and six repaired beams in a planar wooden frame are tested and numerical simulated. The test phenomena, bearing capacity, and stiffness of all the wooden beams are analyzed. Compared with the wooden beams without initial damage, the bearing capacity of the beams with upper inlay repair, upper core repair, partial tenon repair, and lower core repair increases by 38.93%, 13.06%, 5.08%, and 3.94%, respectively. Furthermore, the experimental and numerical results indicate that the upper and lower parts of the wooden beam with initial damage can be more effectively repaired by the inlay and core methods, respectively. When the tenon is partially damaged, the mechanical properties of the wooden beam are improved after repair. The simulation of lower inlay repair shows that the bearing capacity of the wooden beam is inversely proportional to the repair height and the distance between the repair position and the span. Based on the experimental results, a dovetail form of inlay repair is proposed, and it is numerically verified that this method can effectively reduce the stress concentration.