Research on Mechanical Properties of Dingtougong Mortise-Tenon Joints of Chinese Traditional Hall-Style Timber Buildings Built in the Song and Yuan Dynasties

ABSTRACT

In order to study structural properties of Dingtougong mortise-tenon joints of Chinese traditional hall-style timber buildings built in the Song and Yuan dynasties, and to provide theoretical basis for structural analysis and scientific conservation of this type of architectural heritages. First, the main structural characteristics of the Chinese hall-style timber buildings built in the Song and Yuan dynasties were sorted out, including the structural forms, structural dimensions, and configurations of mortise-tenon joints. Then, the low cyclic loading tests of the six reduced-scale mortise-tenon joints were carried out, including the five groups of Dingtougong mortise-tenon joints, and the one reference group of mortise-tenon joint without Dingtougong. The results show that all the five groups of Dingtougong mortise-tenon joints have better structural performance than the one reference group of mortise-tenon joint on the aspects of ultimate capacity and rotational rigidity. In the five groups of Dingtougong mortise-tenon joints, the structural performance of the Dingtougong mortise-tenon joint with Dingtougong of through mortise-tenon joint is obviously superior to that of the Dingtougong mortise-tenon joint with Dingtougong of half mortise-tenon joint. Besides, considering material nonlinearity and contact nonlinearity, the finite element models of the six groups of mortise-tenon joints were built up by ANSYS, and the structural properties of these mortise-tenon joints under in-plane vertical load, out-of-plane horizontal load and torque load were analyzed and compared with the experimental results. The theoretical results very coincide with the experimental results. Under in-plane vertical load, the Dingtougong obviously improves the mechanical performance of the mortise-tenon joint. In addition, the relationships among the initial elastic rotational rigidity K_Y under in-plane vertical load, the initial elastic rotational rigidity K_X under out-of-plane horizontal load, and the initial elastic rotational rigidity K_R under torque load of these six groups of mortise-tenon joints were obtained, the results of which can provide theoretical base for structural analysis and conservation design of Chinese traditional hall-style timber buildings.

KEYWORDS:

• Dingtougong
• hall-style structure
• mechanical property
• Song and Yuan dynasties
• traditional timber building

Acknowledgments

This article was written with the support of National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51778122 & 51578127).

Disclosure

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant No. 51778122 & 51578127].