4. Conclusions
Bonded-in rod connection is an innovative and efficient technique in strengthening timber members. The performance of this innovative tool is governed by stresses at the interfaces. The current research used fibre optic sensors to study the interfacial stress-strain behaviour of bondedin BFRP rod glulam connections. It was found that, the interfacial stresses at the loaded end were higher than those at the unloaded end. It was also observed that, samples loaded perpendicular to the grain increased in interfacial stress when the bonded length increased. In the case of the parallel to the grain samples, increasing bonded length at the same loading configuration resulted in a decrease in interfacial stress at the loaded end.At the same loading configuration, the perpendicular to the grain samples recorded higher strain values than the corresponding parallel to the grain samples at the loaded end. Moreover, the stress-slip behaviour of samples loaded perpendicular to the grain exhibited pseudo-ductile behaviour whereas the corresponding parallel to the grain samples showed non-linear response with brittle behaviour.
