Abstract
Kempas (Koompassia malaccensis) is one of the common Malaysian species used for flooring and heavy construction. It is resistant to fungus and prone to dry wood borers. This study focused on the experimental mortise and tenon connection fastened with glass fibre-reinforced polymer (GFRP); wood, and steel dowel. The finite element method (FEM) was used to model the behaviour of mortise and tenon joint for wood dowel subjected to pull-out loads using ABAQUS software. The entire structural scale of mortise and tenon was fastened with a 21 mm diameter dowel. The investigation was carried out by applying tensile loads to the top of the tenon. This study adopted a linear elastic orthotropic material to represent the behaviour of Kempas wood fastened with GFRP dowel using the FEM. In this study, the results reveal the load-carrying capacity of the mortise and tenon in a sequence of highest to lowest is when the joint dowelled with GFRP, steel and wood. The stiffness value obtained from the FEM for GFRP dowel overestimated the experimental value.