Development Of A Ready-to-assemble

The ready-to-assemble (RTA) construction system is a new method for assembling wood structuresbuilt from the following engineered wood products: parallel strand lumber (PSL), laminated strandlumber (LSL), and laminated veneer lumber (LVL). The RTA system is designed for rapid assemblyby small crews of unskilled labor using common hand tools. The design of the RTA systemincorporates engineered woods attributes of strength, stiffness, straightness, and dimensional stabilitythereby maximizing the efficient utilization of the existing wood resource base. Integral to the systemis a mechanical fastener that laminates wood members and provides a mechanism to connect thelaminated members into a structural framing system. The existing data on the new RTA connectionsystem suggests that the connector has over twice the strength of nailed or bolted connections that havesimilar cross-sectional areas to the RTA connector. The objectives of this project are: to develop aperformance database for the RTA system through empirical testing, to analyze the test data and derivestrength and stiffness values of the connector, and to design an RTA system for use in economiccomparisons of competing construction methods.