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Reliability-based analysis of aluminium laminated solid timber columns using selected Nigerian timber species
Abstract
This paper presents the results of safety assessment of timber columns laminated with aluminium using the First Order Reliability Methods. Three failure modes were considered in the studies: bending failure, buckling failure, and flexural buckling failure modes. The results show that the column is safer for compression failure mode which has safety index values of 4.3 and 9.68 for imposed load and dead-to-live load parameters respectively without laminates, and progressive safety indices of up to 12.4 and 20.87 respectively for columns with laminates of 20mm thickness. The study showed that the most critical failure mode for the column is the flexural buckling mode. It is therefore deduced that from the results of the critical failure mode, laminate thickness of 10mm should be used to withstand any variation in load ratios of 0.6, 0.8 and 1.0 and a maximum imposed load of 15kN be used to ensure a safe column design.
Keywords: reliability, critical failure mode, stochastic, composite, limit state