Many bridges built during the colonial times in Australia have timber girders as load transferring elements and they are still in service with increased traffic loads and consistent deterioration. Most of the timber girders in those bridges are notched at the ends for better seating arrangement. Therefore, it is necessary to quantify the strength characteristics of notched girders in order to ensure structural safety and make necessary intervention to extend their service lives. Hence experimental tests were conducted on the notched rectangular timber girder samples with three different notch depths (i.e.10%, 15% and 30% of the depth of beam) having the notched angle of 1:4. Consequently, detailed finite element models were developed for notched timber girders, and the models were validated with experimental results. The validated model was used to predict the shear and flexural strengths and stiffnesses of typical circular and rectangular timber girders with two different spans (i.e. 6 m and 9 m), three different notch angles (i.e. 1: 0, 1:2 and 1:4) and three depths (i.e.15%, 30% and 45% o of the depth of beam). Strength data developed for notched timber were used to compare the applicability of the design provisions in various timber design standards. Experimental and finite element model test results show that when the notch depth increased from 15% to 45%, the load carrying capacity of rectangular timber girder was reduced by 50%. Whilst, the reduction of the load carrying capacity of the corresponding circular timber girder was slightly low (i.e. 37%). Further, when the notched angle changes from 1:0 to 1:4, the load carrying capacity of circular and rectangular girders increased about 50%, 69% and 110% for the notch depths 15%, 30% and 45%, respectively.

在澳大利亚殖民时期建造的许多桥梁都以木梁作为荷载传递元件，但随着交通荷载的增加和不断恶化，它们仍在使用中。这些桥梁中的大多数木梁的末端都有缺口，可以更好地安排座位。因此，有必要对缺口梁的强度特性进行量化，以确保结构安全并采取必要的干预措施以延长其使用寿命。因此，对具有三个不同的缺口深度（即梁深度的10％，15％和30％）的缺口角为1：4的矩形矩形木梁试样进行了实验测试。因此，针对带缺口的木梁开发了详细的有限元模型，并通过实验结果对模型进行了验证。经过验证的模型用于预测具有两个不同跨距（即6 m和9 m），三个不同切角（即1：0、1：2和1）的典型圆形和矩形木梁的抗剪，抗折强度和刚度。 4）和三个深度（即光束深度的15％，30％和45％o）。为缺口木材开发的强度数据用于比较各种木材设计标准中设计规定的适用性。实验和有限元模型测试结果表明，当切口深度从15％增加到45％时，矩形木梁的承载能力降低了50％。同时，相应的圆形木梁承载能力的降低略低（即37％）。此外，当切口角度从1：0变为1：4时，