RESEARCH
Seismic bracing on hillsides
Light timber-framed houses on hills and those within the scope of NZS 3604 may
share many structural design issues but their seismic bracing performance can be very
different. A BRANZ research project looked at the seismic bracing design for houses on
hillsides.
By Angela Liu, BRANZ Senior Structural Engineer
R
esidential houses in New Zealand are
usually light timber-framed buildings
constructed according to NZS 3604,
an Acceptable Solution to New
Zealand Building Code clause B1 Structure.
Although construction of residential houses
to NZS 3604 does not require professional
structural engineering, the development of
NZS 3604 has an engineering basis, and its
application is limited to regular buildings up to
10 m high on relatively flat sites.
Building on hillsides popular
More and more residential houses are being
built on hillside sites. Flat land to build on is
becoming more scarce, and people want the
spectacular views that hill sites often provide.
Hillside light timber-framed houses have
many similarities to houses within the scope of
NZS 3604 – the building height at any vertical
plane is often less than 10 m and the main
building is of light timber-framed construction.
Because of this, people tend to use NZS
3604 as much as possible for constructing
Figure 1: Typical up-slope house.
70 BUILD 125 August/September 2011
hillside houses, but NZS 3604 should not be
simply followed for these houses.
Up-slope and down-slope houses
differ
Hillside light timber-framed houses fall into two
broad categories – up-slope houses and down-
slope houses. Up-slope houses are usually built
either into the ground or immediately founded
on the ground (see Figure 1). The seismic
bracing performance of these houses is likely
to be similar to that within the scope of NZS
3604.
In contrast, the seismic bracing performance
of down-slope houses is likely to be different
from NZS 3604 as they are usually separated
by substantial subfloor structures (see Figure
2). Because of the sloping ground, down-slope
hillside houses usually have:
❚❚ irregular subfloor structures
❚❚ short subfloor bracing elements on the uphill
side
❚❚ tall subfloor bracing elements on the
downhill side.
Figure 2: Typical down-slope house.
Varying stiffness affects behaviour in
earthquakes
Stiffness refers to an object’s resistance to
deformation. The varying heights in down-slope
houses mean varying stiffness, even for similar
types of bracing systems such as braced piles.
Just as a short squat wall is stiffer than the
same kind of tall wall, so short braced piles are
stiffer than tall ones.
Stiffer elements absorb more of the
earthquake forces than flexible elements when
they work in combination. This effect can be
seen for hillside houses with a subfloor bracing
system of a stepped foundation beam and
sheathed timber subfloor walls (see Figure 3).
When the seismic motion is up and down
the slope, the stiffest shear panel (sheathed
wall panel A) will attract most of the earthquake
force. If it is not strong enough, it may fail. Then
the next shortest, panel B, becomes the stiffest
panel and attracts most of the bracing force until
it fails. This continues until the whole structural
system has failed and the entire house has
collapsed. This is called progressive collapse.
 panel A

panel B

panel C

Figure 3: Stiffness variation of subfloor bracing system in down-slope house. Failure would occur
in panel A first as a result of up- and down-slope seismic action.

Irrespective of the subfloor bracing systems, hillside houses on steep

slopes could potentially experience similar progressive failure because of
the nature of stiffness variation on sloped ground.
When the earthquake direction is along the slope, the building tends
to rotate because the bracing systems lower down the hillside are usually
more flexible than the ones higher up the hillside (see Figure 4).

Seismic bracing design techniques proposed

The BRANZ research project examined the critical engineering issues for
seismic bracing of hillside light timber-framed houses. It found that the
bracing design of hillside light timber-framed houses varies significantly,
depending on whether or not there are adequate bracing mechanisms at
floor levels.
If there are adequate tie-back connections from the building to the ground
at floor levels, then the bracing design is similar to NZS 3604. Otherwise,
the research proposes a bracing design using a direct displacement-based
procedure to prevent potential progressive failure.
Due to the complex make-up of subfloor systems, seismic bracing
de­sign techniques are proposed in principle only for different building
categor­­ies. A structural engineer will need to work through these for each
project.
A BRANZ study report with these research findings and design techniques
will be available soon from www.branz.co.nz, then BRANZ Shop.

floor rotation
away from
uphill edge
main floor
level

rotation

Figure 4: Torsional response to along-slope earthquake.

BUILD 125 August/September 2011 71