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In partially anchored shear walls, the leading stud is not fully anchored against the uplift; hence the uplifting force is resisted by the sheathing-to-framing joint along the bottom rail. These joint forces will introduce crosswise bending and shear in the bottom rail leading to possible splitting failures. To design partially anchored shear walls, plastic design methods can be used and, therefore, the bottom rails must not fail in a brittle manner. In this paper, results of two experimental programmes with respect to the splitting capacity of bottom rails with double-sided sheathing due to uplift in partially anchored shear walls are presented. This was evaluated varying the distance between the washer edge and the edge of the bottom rail, and the pith orientation of the bottom rail. The experimental results show two brittle failure modes for the bottom rail: (1) a crack opening from the bottom surface of the bottom rail and (2) a crack opening from the edge surface of the bottom rail. The results indicate that the distance from the edge of the washer to the edges of the bottom rail has a decisive influence on the load-carrying capacity and failure modes of the bottom rail.

In partially anchored timber frame shear walls, hold-down devices are not provided; hence the uplift forces are transferred by the fasteners of the sheathing-to-framing joints into the bottom rail and via anchor bolts from the bottom rail into the foundation. Since the force in the anchor bolts and the sheathing-to-framing joints do not act in the same vertical plane, the bottom rail is subjected to tensile stresses perpendicular to the grain and splitting of the bottom rail may occur. This paper presents simple analytical models based on fracture mechanics for the analysis of such bottom rails. An existing model is reviewed and several alternative models are derived and compared qualitatively and with experimental data. It is concluded that several of the fracture mechanics models lead to failure load predictions which seem in sufficiently good agreement with the experimental results to justify their application in practical design.