This paper focuses on a particular application of birch plywood in adhesively bonded connections, namely, a node of a timber truss. The aim is to investigate the influence of the plywood's additional width and the load-to-face grain angles on its load-bearing capacity in tension (tensile capacity). The experimental tests started from the case with the plywood width the same as the glulam width. The reference tensile strengths tested from the specimens with a small gap between glulam elements are high at any load-to-face grain angle, i.e., around 51 MPa, 44 MPa, and 41 MPa at 0°, 22.5°, and 45° to the face grain respectively, due to the changed crack paths of the 22.5° and 45° plywood. The very low angle-dependent tensile strength is unique for cross-grained veneer-based panels in adhesively bonded connections, and is promising for applications in truss nodes. With the increase of the plywood width, the tensile capacity of birch plywood tended to reach a plateau. Test results indicated a low angle-dependence of the maximum tensile capacities of birch plywood but the plateaus were reached at different plywood widths. This phenomenon can be well interpreted by introducing the concept of effective widths and spreading angles. The specific spreading angles were determined by comparing the predicted tensile capacity to the test results, which should be valid for adhesively bonded birch plywood plates in truss nodes irrespective of the geometrical parameters.
QC 20240708