The effect of holes on the creep behavior and flexural capacity of laminated veneer lumber (LVL) beams

•LVL beams with hole patterns were tested under long-term loads and to failure.•LVLs with allowable hole patterns performed similar to LVLs without holes.•When holes are shifted above or below the neutral axis LVLs exhibited decreased performance.•LVLs with larger than allowable holes requires additional research. This paper investigates the effect of holes on the immediate and long-term deflection of laminated veneer lumber (LVL) under two levels of sustained loading and on their ultimate capacity. Holes approximately equal to the maximum allowed as well as those exceeding allowable limits were evaluated. The results based on the limited number of samples evaluated in this study show that holes located within the allowable regions of the beam could be larger than the sizes currently allowed without having a substantial negative impact on the long-term deflection or ultimate capacity; however, when the holes are shifted outside of the allowable region the performance decreases significantly.