Structural Performance of Connectors in a Hardwood Stairway Handrail Guard System

Wood is a preferred material for constructing staircases due to its appealing aesthetic features. The use of wood, especially hardwoods such as red oak (Quercus rubra), white oak (Quercus alba), yellow poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera), and hard maple (Acer saccharum), has been the main construction material for staircases over the years. Staircase designs have evolved because of the flexibility of wood and working with specialized manufacturing machinery. A stair guard system connection must be designed to resist rotational and translational movements whenever a force is applied to the handrail. The demand for structural design values in wooden stair guards has been steadily increasing, driven by the needs of engineers, designers, builders, and end-users alike. This paper presents experimental data for four stair guard connections (post-to-rail, infill-to-footing, infill-to-rail, and rail-to-rail) encountered in a hardwood stairway handrail guard system. The data generated from this research could be useful for modeling the structural behavior of the connections.