Due to new possibilities traditional timber framing has become increasingly popular since the beginning of the 21e century. Although traditional timber framing has been used for centuries, the expected mechanical behaviour is not dealt with in great detail in building codes, guidelines or text books. Especially the behaviour of connections is of great importance govern the stiffness (and stability) behaviour of traditional portal frames. A mechanical model is developed to describe and predict the behaviour of a portal frame. The stiffnesses used in this model are based on test data. The theoretical analysis is based on the work energy metho
