Withdrawal capacity of washers in bolted timber connections

The European Yield Model (EYM) has been accepted to determine the load-carrying capacity of structural timber connections. However, experiments of bolted connections are still not in agreement with the EYM unless the additional bearing capacity offered by the washers is taken into account. This bearing capacity is depending on the compressive strength perpendicular to grain of the structural timber. Tests results carried out with M16 and M24 washers on solid and glued laminated timber are used to verify the reliability of three strength capacity predicting models, one of which is an analytical model while the other two are empirical. It was concluded that the analytical model is the superior one. This model should be incorporated in all new structural timber design code revisions.