DETERMINATION OF FAILURE MODE OF TIMBER JOINTS

BY MONTE CARLO SIMULATION

Motoi Yasumura1, Julien Baroth2, Kenji Kobayashi3

ABSTRACT: Generally seismic performance of timber structures depends much on the ductility of joints which is
based on the failure mode of the joint. In this study probabilistic approach was firstly applied to determine the yield
mode of dowel type joints and the relation between yield mode and the member thickness to dowel diameter ratio was
clarified. Then Monte-Carlo simulation and reliability based analysis were conducted to determine the failure mode of
the joints subjected to the force perpendicular to the wood grain and the moment resisting joints. These simulations
revealed that the deterministic approach gives fairly good estimation of the yield mode of dowel-type joints, but it tends
to mislead into estimating the wrong failure mode which may cause the brittle failure of the structure.

KEYWORDS: Dowel type joints, Moment resisting joints, Yield load, Maximum load, Glued laminated timber

1 INTRODUCTION 123
The most important factors to determine a seismic
performance of timber structures are type of structure,
stiffness and load-carrying capacity, ductility and energy
dissipation. Stiffness of the structure dominates the
earthquake response due to the characteristics of the
ground motion and the load-carrying capacity and
ductility dominate the damage of the structure. The
ductility of the structure is determined by the ductility of
structural elements and the type of structure. Generally
panel sheathed shear walls give a good ductility and
trussed frames give low ductility. The ductility of frame
structures with moment resisting joints depend much on
the ductility of joints and the member sizes as wooden
members generally show brittle failure. Therefore, it is
expected to design timber structures so that they have the
joints of high ductility and the yielding of joints precedes
the brittle failure of wood. It is known that the ductility
of dowel type joints depends on the yield mode defined
by the thickness of members, fastener diameter,
embedding strength of wood and yield strength of dowel.
Generally the mode of higher degree shows higher
ductility than the mode of lower degree. In the design,
the minimum value among those corresponding to each
1
Motoi Yasumura, Department of Environment and Forest
Resources Science, Shizuoka University, 836 Ohya, Suruga-ku,
Shizuoka, 422-8529 Japan. Email: afmyasu@ipc.shizuoka.ac.jp
2
Julien Baroth, Department of Civil Engineering of IUT1,
Laboratoir 3S-R, University of Joseph Fourier, BP53-38 041
Grenoble Cedex 9, France. Email: jbaroth@ujf-grenoble.fr
3
Kenji Kobayashi, Department of Environment and Forest
Resources Science, Shizuoka University, 836 Ohya, Suruga-ku,
Shizuoka, 422-8529 Japan. Email:akkobay@ipc.shizuoka.ac.jp
mode is taken for the design capacity of the joint, but it
may not always correspond to the actual yielding mode
as the strength distributions of steel and wood are not
taken into account. In this study probabilistic analysis is
made to determine the yield mode of dowel type joints.
In the case of the joints subjected to the force
perpendicular to the wood grain, the failure of wood due
to the fracture along the wood grain causes quite brittle
failure. In frame structures with moment resisting joints,
it is not desirable that failure of posts precedes the
yielding of joints connecting the post and beam. The
similar analysis was made on the moment resisting joints
to determine appropriate size of post member. Monte-
Carlo simulation and reliability based analysis were
conducted to determine the failure mode of the joints
subjected to the force perpendicular to the wood grain
and the moment resisting joints. These simulations
revealed that the deterministic approach gives fairly
good estimation of the yield mode of dowel-type joints,
but it tends to mislead into estimating the wrong failure
mode which may cause the brittle failure of the structure.
2 DETERMINATION OF YIELD MODE
OF DOWEL TYPE JOINTS
2.1 CLASSIFICATION OF JOINTS
Notification No.1792 of Japanese Building Standard
Law[1] provides the structural characteristic coefficient
Ds of timber structures whose cross section and smaller
width of main members are not less than 300cm2 and
15cm, respectively. It is determined by the combination
of classification of members and joints and the type of
structure. In this standard, the classification of wooden
members is simply based on the margin of the strength
of 1.5 and the classification of joints based on the ratio c) Double shear joint with wood side members
of member thickness to dowel diameter and the fracture
of wood. On the other hand mechanical joints are  2 (mod e Ia)
classified into three categories of JA, JB and JC in AIJ 
standard[2]. In the case of dowel type joints it is  1 (mod e Ib)
determined by the yield modes of joints I, II, III and IV. 
Joints of the category JA has very good ductility based 
on the yield mode IV without fracture of wood. Joints of  d 
2

category JB has good ductility based on the yield mode  8  

 8  1    
2 2
II or III without fracture of wood. Joints of category JC l
C  min . (4)
show small ductility based on the yield mode I often
 2  1 2
32   1
involving the fracture of wood. Factors of 1.0, 0.9 and 2
0.75 are multiplied respectively to the design capacity of   (mod e III )
joints according to the category JA, JB and JC. The  2  1
determination of the yield mode corresponds to the mode

which gives the minimum yield strength among those 
d 8
calculated from all the possible yield modes of the joint.
 l 3(1   ) (mod e IV )

2.2 YIELD STRENGTH
Where,  : the ratio of side member thickness to that of
Yield strength Qy of dowel type joints is provided in AIJ
standard [2] as follows; main member,  : the ratio of embedding strength of
side members to that of main member,  : the ratio of
Q y  C  Fe  d  l (1)
yield strength of steel Fy to the embedding strength of
Where, Fe : embedding strength of wood, d : dowel wood Fe.
diameter, l : main member thickness. The above joint types a) to c) can be applicable to double
C : coefficient defined by the type of joint as shown in shear bolted joints, and joint types b) and c) are
equations (2) to (4); applicable to drift pin joints.
Characteristic capacity of joints in Eurocode 5 is based
a) Double shear joint with steel side plates on the sum of the yield strength and the additional
strength considering the withdrawal resistance of
 1 (mod e I ) fasteners which gives the ultimate capacity instead of the
 yield strength, while equations (1) to (4) provide the
 yield strength which defines the yield modes. The
C  min . (2)
ultimate capacity of the joints Qu is defined by the
d 8
  (mod e IV ) equation (5) in AIJ standard based on the yield strength
l 3 Qy .

b) Double shear joint with a steel centre web Qu   u  Qy (5)

 1 (mod e I ) Where,  u : ultimate strength ratio.



 8 d
C  min . 2   ( ) 2  1 (mod e III ) (3)
 3 l
 d 8
  (mod e IV )
l 3

Mode I mode IV

Figure 1: Yield mode of double shear bolted joints with

steel side plates
 Table 1: Embedding strength Fe for dowel type joints
provided in AIJ standard
Average Charact- Characteristic embedding
Group density eristic strength (N/mm2)
(kg/m3) density Parallel to Perpendicul
(kg/m3) grain -ar to grain
J1 500 420 25.4 12.7
J2 440 370 22.4 11.2
J3 380 320 19.4 9.7

Mode I Mode III Mode IV In AIJ standard, the yield strength Fy of 235N/mm2 is
taken for the steel JIS SS400. However, the actual yield
Figure 2: Yield mode of double shear bolted joints with strengths of steel used for dowels are much higher than
a steel centre web this value and scatters from mill to mill as shown in
Table 2 [4,5].

Table 2: Yield strength of bolts in 16mm diameter [4]

Mill Yield strength (N/mm2) C.O.V. (%)
A 335 2.35
B 309 1.88
C 348 1.30
D 321 2.16

2.4 MOMTE CARLO SIMULATION

Mode Ia Mode Ib Monte Carlo simulation was conducted on three types of
bolted joints as mentioned above. Normal distribution
with the embedding strength of 33.8N/mm2 in average
and the standard deviation of 4.36N/mm2 was prepared
from the following functions.

X i =  2ln (1  U k )cos2π  U k 1 
(6)
X i 1 =  2ln (1  U k )sin 2π  U k 1 

Mode III Mode IV
Figure 3: Yield mode of double shear bolted joints with
wood side members
The yield mode is determined by the minimum
characteristic strength of each yield mode based on the
5th % lower exclusive limit.
2.3 DETERMINATION OF YIELD MODE
Considering the distribution of embedding strength of
wood and yield strength of steel, it is doubtful whether
the above design always determines exactly the yield
mode of the joints. Monte Carlo simulation is one of the
possible methods to determine the yield mode. AIJ
standard provides the embedding strength of wood for
dowels of 8 to 26mm diameter as shown in Table 1.
These values are based on the embedding tests of wood,
but they are defined independent on the diameter of
dowels as they are fixed to the embedding strengths of
those for 26mm diameter. Therefore, the embedding
strength of 33.8N/mm2 in average and the standard
deviation of 4.36N/mm2 were applied to this study for
spruce parallel to the grain according to the original
embedding test by Sawata and Yasumura[3].
Fe,i      X i (7)
Where, Uk and Uk+1 : uniform random numbers,  :
mean,  : standard deviation.
For the yield strength of dowel, uniform distribution
between 309 and 348 N/mm2 was applied. Probability of
yielding in Mode (i) is expressed as equation (8).
Pi = N(mode i) / N (8)
Where, N (mode i) : number of occurrence of yielding in
mode i.
2.5 RESULTS OF SIMULATION
Figures 4 to 6 show the probability of occurrence of each
yield mode of bolted joints with variable ratio of
member thickness to bolt diameter (l/d). For bolted joints
with steel side plates, the ratio of the main member
thickness to bolt diameter (l/d) was 4.62 when the
probability of yielding of joint in mode I was 95% and
that was 5.76 when the probability of yielding of joint in
mode IV was 95% as shown in Fig.4.
 1 60000

50000
0.8

Yield strength (N)

40000
Probability

0.6 modeⅠ
modeⅣ 30000
0.4 95%
20000 Simulation

0.2 Mean
10000 5% lower limit
0 AIJ standard
0
0 2 4 6 8 10
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
l/d l/d

Figure 4: Probability of yielding vs. l/d in bolted joints Figure 7: Yield strength vs. l/d in bolted joints with steel
with steel side plates side plates

1 60000

50000
0.8

Ｙｉｅｌｄ ｓｔｒｅｎｇｔｈ （Ｎ）

modeⅠ
Probability

40000
0.6
modeⅢ
30000
0.4 modeⅣ
95% 20000 simulation
0.2 AIJ standard
10000 mean
0 5% lower limit
0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
l/d l/d

Figure 5: Probability of yielding vs. l/d in bolted joints Figure 8: Yield strength vs. l/d in bolted joints with a
with a steel centre web steel centre web

1 40000

35000
0.8
Ｙｉｅｌｄ ｓｔｒｅｎｇｔｈ （Ｎ）

30000
Probability

0.6 mode(Ia+Ib) 25000

modeⅢ 20000
0.4
modeⅣ 15000 simulation
0.2 10000 AIJ standard
95%
mean
5000
0 5% lower limit
0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
0 2 4 6 8 10 12
l/d l/d

Figure 6: Probability of yielding vs. l/d in bolted joints Figure 9: Yield strength vs. l/d in bolted joints with
with wood side members of a half thickness of the main wood side members with a half thickness of the main
member member

For bolted joints with a steel centre web, the ratio of the
main member thickness to bolt diameter (l/d) was 3.25
when the probability of yielding of joint in mode I was
95%, and that was between 4.07 and 9.21 when the
probability of yielding of joint in mode III was equal to
or larger than 95% . The ratio of the main member
thickness to bolt diameter (l/d) was 11.53 when the
probability of yielding of joint in mode IV was 95% as
shown in Fig.5. For the bolted joints with wood side
members with a half thickness of the main member, the
ratio of the main member thickness to bolt diameter (l/d)
was 2.45 when the probability of the yielding of joint in
mode I was 95% and that was between 3.19 and 7.67
when the probability of the yielding of joint in mode III
was equal to or larger than 95%.
The ratio of the main member thickness to bolt diameter
(l/d) was 10.06 when the probability of the yielding of
joint in mode IV was 95% as shown in Fig.6.
Figures 7 to 9 show the relation between the yield
strength and the ratio of the main member thickness to
bolt diameter (l/d) . Figures 7 to 9 indicate that the yield
strengths provided in AIJ standard are approximately 25
to 27% smaller than the simulated 5th % lower exclusive
limit, but this margin may be appropriate considering the
construction error and variation of species.
The critical value of l/d between two yield modes are
summarised in Table 3. Figures 7 to 9 and Table 3 show
that the critical values of l/d between two yield modes
obtained from AIJ standard coincided with the 95%
probability of the yield mode of higher degree. This
indicates that the determination of the yield mode from
 AIJ standard gives appropriate mode considering the shear force between both sides of the fastener (1   
ductility of joints which is very important in seismic
２) Fs: shear strength of wood, Cr: fracture parameter of
design of timber structures.
wood.
Table 3: Summary of the critical value of l/d between
yield modes (16mm bolts with spruce) 3.2 MONTE CARLO SIMULATUION
SWS WSW WWW Monte Carlo Simulation can be conducted on the dowel
l/d Simulation AIJ Simulation AIJ Simulation AIJ type joints with the same method as the case parallel to
I I I,II the grain, however this time we should deal with the
4.62 I 3.25 I 2.45 I,II ultimate strength instead of yield strength of joints which
I+IV I+III I,II+III is more complicated than the yield strength. Considering
5.76 5.68 4.07 4.02 3.19 2.84 the bolted joints consisting of a bolt of 16mm diameter
III III loaded perpendicular to the grain of spruce beam of
9.21 III 7.67 III 320mm (20d) in height and 64mm (4d) and 160mm
IV IV III+IV III+IV (10d) in width with steel side plates, the embedding
11.53 11.4 10.06 9.70 strength of spruce was based on bi-linear approximation
IV IV IV IV for 15mm displacement (22.6N/mm2 mean and standard
Note: I, II, III and IV correspond to the yield mode deviation of 5.40N/mm2) and the ultimate strength of
SWS: joints with steel side plates, WSW: joints with a steel steel of 513N/mm2 in average and 12N/mm2 in standard
centre web, WWW: Joints with wood side members, AIJ: AIJ
deviation was used instead of the yield strength. For
Standard for structural design of timber structures
shear strength of wood, average strength of 4.0N/mm2
was taken assuming COV of 15%. The fracture
3 DETERMINATION OF FAILURE parameter Cr was 11.0 N/mm1.5 in mean and standard
MODE OF DOWEL TYPE JOINTS deviation of 0.74 N/mm1.5 from the fracture test of joints
SUBJECTED TO FORCE [6].
PERPENDICULAR TO THE GRAIN
3.3 RELIABILITY BASED ANALYSIS
If we know the strength distribution of the joints and
3.1 FAILURE MODE
fracture of wood we can apply reliability based analysis.
Failure mode of dowel type joints subjected to the force The condition that the joint does not fail with the fracture
perpendicular to the wood grain show sometimes very of wood can be obtained from the following equations.
brittle failure due to the fracture of wood. This failure
mode is quite unfavourable to the seismic performance G i  P uw,i  Puj  0 (i=1,2) (12)
of timber structures, and this failure mode should be
avoided as much as possible. Therefore it is necessary
that the joints shall be designed so that the joints yield i  uw,i  uj (13)
before the fracture of wood when they are subjected to
force perpendicular to the wood grain.
Design of dowel type joints subjected to force  i   uw
2
, i   uj
2
(14)
perpendicular to the grain is also provided in AIJ timber
standard. Besides the design of joints according to the
i
yield theory, it requires to check the fracture i  (15)
perpendicular to the wood grain due to the stress i
perpendicular to the grain and the shear force.
Puw  min .( Puw1 , Puw 2 ) (9)   min .( 1 ,  2 ) (16)

Where, P uw,i : normal distribution of Puw1 and Puw2,

2 he
Puw1   Cr  l  Puj : normal distribution of bolted joint without failure
sin  h
1 e
(10)
h of wood, uw,i ,  uw,i : mean and standard deviation of
Puw1 and Puw2,  i : reliability index for G1 and G2.
2
Puw 2     he  l  Fs (11)
3 sin  3.4 RESULTS OF SIMULATION
Where, Puw: ultimate strength of joints due to the failure Figures 10 and 11 show the probability of failure in
of wood, Puw1, Puw2: strength of joints due to the stress joints and failure of wood calculated with Monte Carlo
perpendicular to the grain and shear stress, respectively, simulation.
h: height of beam, he: edge distance, l: width of beam,
 : loading angle to the grain of wood,  : ratio of the
total shear force at both sides of the fastener to larger
 1 the simulation as the smaller capacity between wood
Probability of failure
0.8
0.6 wood
joint
0.4
95%
0.2
0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8
h/he
Figure 10: Probability of failure for the joint yielding
and fracture of wood in the bolted joints with steel side
plates ( d = 16mm, l=4d, h=20d)
1 Note: W and B correspond to wood failure and bolt yielding,
Probability of failure
0.8
0.6 wood
joint
0.4 95%
0.2
0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8
h/he
Figure 11: Probability of failure for the joint yielding
and fracture of wood in the bolted joints with steel side
plates ( d = 16mm, l=10d, h=20d)
Figures 10 and 11 indicate that the critical ratio of edge
distance to beam height (he/h) is 0.287 for wood failure
and 0.609 for bolt yielding when the main member
thickness is 4d, and 0.228 for wood failure and 0.434 for
bolt yielding when the main member thickness is 10d.
Therefore, the ratio of the critical edge distance to beam
height (he/h) to avoid the wood failure is approximately
0.6 for l/d =4 and 0.6 for l/d =10.
The ratio of critical edge distance to beam height (he/h)
was also calculated with reliability based analysis using
the equations (9) to (15) on bolted joints with steel side
plates which subjected to a force perpendicular to the
wood grain. In this case the COV of joint without wood
failure was assumed to be 8.5% from the simulation, and
reliability index  of 2 was assumed.
Table 3 summarises the critical ratio of he/h for bolt
yielding and wood failure by Monte Calro simulation
(M.C.), reliability based analysis (R.B.A) and the
calculation according to AIJ standard in the case of l/d of
4 and 10 of bolted joint with steel side plates subjected
to the force perpendicular to the grain.
From the Monte Calro Simulation, it was found that the
wood failure occurs at the rate of more than 95%
probability when he/h values are smaller than 0.22 to
0.29, and the probability of the failure of wood is less
than 5% if he/h is larger than 0.61 for l/d =4 and 0.43 for
l/d=10. The critical he/h values obtained from the
reliability based analysis tended to be 0.5 to 1.3 larger
than Monte Calro simulation. The critical l/d obtained
according to AIJ standard showed smaller values than
failure and dowel yielding is taken, and the failure mode
is automatically determined by this procedure. Although
this design gives a conservative capacity, it is necessary
to determine the failure mode more strictly.
Table 3: Summary of the critical he/h for bolt and wood
failure (16mm bolts with spruce main member and steel
side plates)
1 l/d=4 l/d=10
he/h M.C. R.B.A AIJ M.C. R.B.A AIJ
W W
0.287 W W 0.228 W W
W+B W+B
0.609 0.658 0.227 0.434 0.564 0.215
B B B B B B
respectively, h: beam height, he: edge distance, M.C.: Monte
Carlo Simulation, R.B.A: Reliability Based Analysis, AIJ: AIJ
standard for structural design of timber structure
4 DETERMINATION OF FAILURE
MODE OF POST AND BEAM SEMI-
RIGID JOINTS
1
4.1 DESIGN CONCEPT
Frame structures with moment resisting joints are
gradually used in Japan. In this structure, the seismic
performance is dominated by the ductility of joints, and
it is not desirable that the bending failure of column
precedes the failure of joints as far as the joints have a
good ductility.
4.2 SPECIMENS
Specimens had spruce laminated posts of 300mm width,
120mm depth and 1480 mm length and spruce laminated
beams of 300mm, 390 and 450mm in height, 120mm in
depth and 1900mm in length connected with the semi
rigid joints as shown in Fig.3. Beams were connected to
a steel plate with eleven dowels of 12mm diameters and
the steel plate was connected to the post with four to
eight bolts of 12mm diameters. Four exterior bolts were
grouted with epoxy resin TE-134.
4.3 TEST RESULTS
The average maximum moment of joints were 25.38,
45.54 and 55.23kNm with the standard deviation of 0.44,
3.41 and 1.42kNm for 300, 390 and 450mm height
beams, respectively.
4.4 MONTE CARLO SIMULATION
Figures 13 to 15 show the relation between the
probability of failure and the post width when the beam
height is 300, 390 and 450mm. It shows that the failure
probability of post was very high when the width of
beam is smaller than approximately two thirds of the
beam height, and it decreased gradually as the post width
increased. The failure probability of the post was less
than 5% when the post width was larger than 196, 272
and 293mm respectively when the beam heights were
300, 390 and 450mm.
 1

0.8

Probability of failure
M‐joint
0.6 M‐beam
M‐post
0.4 5%‐post

0.2

0
200 220 240 260 280 300
Post width（mｍ）

Figure 15: Probability of failure v.s. post width (beam

height 450 mm)

4.5 RELIAILITY BASED ANALYSIS

Reliability based analysis was conducted on this type of
joint. The calculation method is almost the same as the
bolted joints except that it concerns only the distribution
of joint capacity and post strength.

Figure 12: Specimen of Moment resisting joints G  M post  M jo int  0 (16)

1
0.9
   post   jo int (17)
Ｐｒｏｂａｂｉｌｉｔｙ ｏｆ failure

0.8
0.7
0.6
M‐joint
   post
2
  2jo int (18)
0.5 M‐beam
0.4 M‐post
0.3 
0.2
5%‐post
 (19)
0.1 
0
150 170 190 210 230 250 Where, M post , M jo int : normal distribution of moment
Post width (mm)
resistance of post and joint,  post ,  jo int ,  post ,
Figure 13: Probability of failure v.s. post width (beam
height of 300mm)
 jo int : mean and standard deviation of M post , M jo int ,
 : reliability index
1 From the experiments of moment resisting joints, the
following values were obtained.
0.8
Probability of failure

M‐joint
 post  7.168  l  h 2 [Nmm]
0.6
M‐beam
0.4 M‐post  jo int  25.38, 45.54, 55.23 [kNm]
5%‐post
0.2

0
 jo int  0.44, 3.41, 1.42 [kNm]
200 220 240 260 280 300
Post height (mｍ） Figure 16 shows the relation between reliability index
 and the post width for the beam height of 300, 390
Figure 14: Probability of failure v.s. post width (beam and 450mm, and Table 4 compares minimum post width
height 390mm) requirement to assure the yielding of joints. These results
show that the minimum post width required for assuring
the joint yielding by Monte Carlo simulation with 95%
probability was very close to those obtained from the
reliability based analysis with  =2.0. The table shows
that the current deterministic approach of the simple
comparison between the lower 5th% exclusive limit
between the post and the joint gives very risky design
comparing Monte Carlo simulation and reliability based [2] Architectural Institute of Japan: Design for
analysis and this method does not assure the failure Structural Design of Timber Structures, Gihodo Ltd.,
mode of the joint. 2006.
[3] Kei Sawata, Motoi Yasumura: Determination of
6 embedding strength of wood for dowel-type
h=300mm fasteners, J. Wood Sci., 48,138-146, 2002
5
Reliability index (β)

h=390mm
[4] Kei Sawata : Estimation of shear strength of bolted
4
h=450mm
timber joints using nonlinear finite element analysis
3 and linear elastic fracture mechanics, Doctoral thesis
presented to The United Graduate School of
2
Agricultural Science, Gifu University (Shizuoka
1 University), 2002
[5] Kei Sawata, Motoi Yasumura : Estimation of Yield
0
150 200 250 300 350 and ultimate strength of bolted timber joints by
Post width (mm) nonlinear analysis and yield theory, J. Wood Sci., 49,
383-391, 2003
Figure 16: Relation between reliability index β and the [6] Motoi Yasumura: Determination of fracture
post width parameter for dowel-type joints loaded
perpendicular to wooden grain and its application,
Table 4: Minimum post width to assure the joint yielding Proceeding of CIB-W18, Kyoto, paper 35-7-9, 1-
Beam Minimum post width (mm) 8, 2002
height Monte Reliability current
(mm) Carlo analysis design
300 196 206 171
390 272 278 230
450 293 303 253

5. CONCLUSIONS
Conducting Monte-Carlo simulation on bolted timber
joints to investigate the current design method in AIJ for
determining the yield mode, it was shown that the
current deterministic approach gives fairly good
estimation of the yield mode of dowel-type joints.
Monte-Carlo simulation and reliability based analysis on
the joints subjected to the force perpendicular to the
wood grain showed that the current design method to
determine the failure mode by comparing the lower 5th %
exclusive limit gives optimistic design conditions to lead
the brittle failure at the joints. Similar simulation and
analysis on the moment resisting joints showed that the
current deterministic design approach leads to the failure
of the post before the yielding of joints and revealed that
the current design procedure based on lower 5th%
exclusive limit will mislead into estimating the wrong
failure mode which may cause the brittle failure of the
structure.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This research was conducted under the awards of Grants-
in-Aid for Scientific Research of JSPS. The authors
thank JSPS for their financial aids to carry on this
research. Authors thank Mr. Nagasaka who conducted
the simulation of joints for master course thesis. Authors
also thank Dr. Sawata for the use of wood embedding
and tension test data of bolts.

REFERENCES
[1] Notification No. 1792, “Method for the calculation
of Ds and Fes”, Ministry of Construction, 1980.