Experimental study on the fire performance of straight-line dovetail joints

To study the fire performance of the common dovetail joint in Chinese ancient architecture, we performed fire exposure and fire resistance tests of straight-line dovetail joints. The fire exposure test shows that the contact part of the dovetail joint was hardly charred because the gap between them is small. In the reference test, the displacement linearly varies with the load when the dovetail joint is fully pressed together. In the fire test, fire retardant coating can improve the fire resistance of the specimen, and its fire protection effect is remarkable. With the increase in load, the fire resistance of specimens obviously decreases. The effect of a tiny 2–4 mm gap between the tenon and the mortise on heat transfer is notably limited. The load level does not significantly affect the speed of temperature increase.

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