EXPERIMENTAL AND ANALYTICAL ANALYSIS OF TIMBER CONNECTIONS WITH INTERPOSED ACOUSTIC RESILIENT STRIP

The load-carrying capacity and stiffness of timber-to-timber or steel-to-timber connections with an interlayer is a topic of great interest, as it is increasingly required to acoustically insulate, by means of resilient strip, the connections used to assemble timber buildings. The effects of the interposed resilient strip on the stiffness and loadcarrying capacity of connections have not yet been studied effectively from experimental and theoretical point of view. This paper reports the main outcomes of an ongoing research, supported by Rotho Blaas S.r.l. company, aimed at the characterization of timber connections with interposed an acoustic resilient strip for flanking noise reduction. The research is developed on two levels: experimental and analytical. An experimental campaign conducted on steel-totimber nailed connections was carried out and analysed. Experimental results were used to validate analytical models available in literature and specialized to account for the effect of acoustic interlayer on both elastic behaviour and failure mechanism.