Rotational behavior of degraded traditional mortise-tenon joints: experimental tests and hysteretic model

This article presents the results of an experimental study on the rotational behavior of degraded Chinese traditional mortise-tenon joints with different degradation types and different degradation degrees. Six joint specimens degraded through artificially simulated method, were tested by reversed cyclic loading, from which the moment-rotation curves were obtained. The results indicated that the rotational behavior of these joints is semi-rigid, the hysteretic curve shapes of degraded joints are same to that of joint without degradation. The maximum moment, yield moment, and initial rotational stiffness of degraded joints decreases as the degraded degree increases, whose empirical degradation relationships were obtained based on the test data. A hysteretic model for degraded traditional mortise tenon joints was proposed. Experimental results were used to validate the proposed hysteretic model. Good agreement between predictions and tests was observed.