Performance evaluation of a wood treatment for connections with dowel-type bolts

Abstract

Recent studies have shown the advantage of wood impregnation on increasing the dowel-bearing strength of black spruce wood by almost 50%. The aim of the present study was to improve the mechanical performance of a dowel-type connection through an impregnation method for black spruce wood. The results showed that wood treatments improved the mechanical performance of dowel-type connections. The dowel-bearing strength increased up to 25%, while the stiffness increased up to 52%. The increase obtained was lower in comparison with the previous studies, however. A lower polymer quantity, resulted in a shorter vacuum time, and a lower temperature polymerization used in wood treatment brought the process closer to an industrial application.