Experimental and numerical study on the screw connection strength of bamboo-oriented strand board compared with wood-oriented strand board

Abstract The utilization of resourceful bamboo can alleviate the wood shortage problem. Bamboo-oriented strand board (BOSB) with the highest utilization of bamboo ratio and excellent mechanical properties was considered as a good engineering and furniture material. The strength of joints affects the safety of BOSB structure. This study aims to investigate the effect of screw spacing on the tensile and compressive stiffness and strength of corner joints from BOSB by experimental method combined with finite element method (FEM) compared with wood-oriented strand board (WOSB). The results showed that (1) the strength and stiffness of the corner joint was significantly affected by the screw spacing, and it affected the compressive strength and stiffness of WOSB more significantly; (2) the bending moment and stiffness coefficient of BOSB compressed joint decreased with the increase of spacing, while that of tensile joint increased first and then decreased, and it reached the maximum value, when the spacing was 48 mm; (3) compared with WOSB joint, BOSB joint had higher strength and stiffness, and the failure of the joint was due to the yielding of self-drilling screws. This was also verified by numerical analysis results; (4) the bending moment of BOSB joints was about 2.5 times that of WOSB joints, while the difference between stiffness coefficient was small; (5) the elastic deformations resulted from experimental tests and FEM are similar. It was shown that when the screw spacing is 48 mm, the Von Mises stresses on the BOSB joint were smaller, and the bending strength and stiffness were larger, which was the most suitable screw spacing.