The Mechanical Behavior of Traditional Taiwanese Tenon and Mortise Wood Joints

The Mechanical Behavior of Traditional Taiwanese Tenon and Mortise Wood Joints

The main purpose of this study is to investigate the mechanical behavior of tenon and mortise wood joints in Taiwan’s traditional wood structure by performing cyclic loading and push-over tests. Related studies are less in our country, and most of the existing studies were tested for furniture purposes. In this study, the raw wood materials were 30-year-old artificial China fir, with diameter of 30 cm(for both column and beam). The following characteristics of the tenon and mortise joints were found:(a) Specimens with same beam and column cross sections(CC and RR) have larger moment capacity and rotational stiffness, however, the difference is not too large,(b) considering specimens of same tenon length but different tenon type(CH and CS), greater moment capacity and rotational stiffness can be achieved by using the CS type, and(c) the greater the tenon length means an increase in the moment capacity and rotational stiffness.