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A review of evaluation in seismic performance of wood building structures

with numerical and experimental methods

Conference Paper · July 2020

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 A review of evaluation in seismic performance of wood building
structures with numerical and experimental methods
Hedayat VELADIa1, Nima KHODADADI b

a
University of tabriz, Departmant of Civil Engineering, Abresan, Tabriz, Iran, Hveladi@tabrizu.ac.ir
b
Iran University of Science and Technology, Departmant of Civil Engineering, Narmak, Tehran, Iran,
Nimakhan.khodadadi@gmail.com

Abstract

This review paper is consisted of two studies about wood structures. One of them is design and construction of 1350 𝑚 2 full-scale
wood building and the performance of the building at three different ground motion intensities. The objectives of the testing
program were to (1) demonstrate that the performance-based seismic design procedure developed as part of the U.S.-based
NEESWood project worked on the full scale building, i.e. validate the design philosophy to the extent one test can; and (2) gain a
better understanding of how mid-rise light-frame wood buildings respond, in general, to a major earthquake while providing a
landmark data set to the seismic engineering research community. In this work the construction of the NEESWood Capstone
Building is explained and the resulting seismic response in terms of base shears, selected wall drifts, global inter-story drifts,
accelerations, hold-down forces, and roof drifts are presented. The global drift at roof level was approximately 0.25 meters and
maximum inter-story drifts were approximately 2% for the floor average with individual wall drifts reaching just over 3% in one
corner of the building at the fifth story. The other study is to develop a new model for nonlinear seismic analysis of wood building
structures. The proposed inelastic material constitutive laws used in the model incorporate different types of degradation, not
available in previous work. The study concludes with a correlation with experimentally tested specimens. Good agreement between
analysis and tests was observed.

Keywords: Wood buildings; Nonlinear analysis of timber structures; Seismic behavior of wood structures; Mid-rise wood frame construction;
shake table testing;

1
Corresponding author
1. INTRODUCTION

According to widespread of using wood building, many researches accomplish about improving performance of
wood structure against applied load. Hence, investigation on the wood structures with experimental and computational
modelling is being important.
Over the last decade progress has been made to better understand the seismic response of light-frame wood
building [1]. Unlike steel or concrete structures, wood buildings lack proper understanding of their structural response,
particularly under the effect of severe loading conditions, such as large seismic excitations or hurricanes. This fact is
supported by many observed damages of wood structures after major earthquakes such as Northridge in California,
US, Kobe in Japan, and Chi Chi in Taiwan; or after major hurricanes such as Ivan and Katrina which hit the Gulf coast
of the US recently. In most wood frame structures; wood shear walls are the main structural element that resists lateral
loads due to wind and earthquakes. Several experimental and analytical studies on timber shear walls have been
performed. Most of these tests were performed for cyclic loading cases, and only a few considered dynamic effects.
Most previous models cannot be developed by modification of existing finite element packages, as they are considered
in-house software programs designed specifically for wood structures. In addition, while these models can provide a
reasonable estimate of the inelastic deformation of timber structures, they do not consider all types of degradation
simultaneously, an important parameter affecting the behavior of timber structures particularly those near collapse.[2]
Several static and dynamic tests on wood shear walls are documented in the literature [3–10]. In addition, a large
experimental program at the University of California, Irvine was conducted [11], where 36 8 ft by 8 ft timber shear
walls with different configurations were tested under reversed cyclic loading. The project was funded by the city of
Los Angeles and FEMA in an effort to investigate current design codes for timber structures after the 1994 Northridge
earthquake. The work was extended later for one-story and two-story shear walls with different configurations and
different finish materials, as a part of the CUREE-Caltech wood-frame project, as described in [12]. Several tests were
also conducted on full scale multi-story wood structures [13–15]. In addition, a two-story wood structure was tested
recently using recorded data on a shake table as a part of the CUREE-Caltech wood-frame project [16]. Furthermore,
three shake table tests on a three-story apartment building with tuck-under parking were also conducted as a part of
the project [17]. The tests investigated the effect of steel frame retrofit schemes around the parking openings, and the
effect of drywall finish materials. Also, as a part of this project, a loading protocol for cyclic analysis of wood shear
walls was developed [18].

2. WOOD SHEAR WALL CONFIGURATION

A typical wood shear wall system consists of three main components:

(a) Framing members, which are vertical studs, and horizontal plates and sills.
(b) Sheathing panels, which are made of plywood, oriented strand boards, or any other structural panel materials.
(c) Connectors to connect the framing members to the sheathing panels. The most commonly used connectors are
dowel-type fasteners such as nails. Nails are typically spaced at regular intervals, but are usually denser around the
perimeter of the panels. In addition, hold-down devices such as anchor bolts are usually provided to provide additional
connection between stud members and sill plates [2]. The load-deformation response of the wood shear walls is highly
nonlinear and is regulated by the nonlinear behavior of the fasteners, which exhibit degrading pinched hysteretic
behavior under cyclic load reversals. As found in experimental studies, the monotonic envelope experiences strength
softening at high rates of deformation, also known as capping

3. THE NEESWOOD CAPSTONE TESTS AND RESPONDED NUMERICAL MODEL FOR WOOD
SHEAR WALLS

Major objectives of the NEESWood Capstone tests at E-Defense was to confirm that a representative mid-rise
wood-frame structure designed using the NEESWood PBSD philosophy satisfies the performance objectives, as pre-
defined during the design process. These performance objectives are under development and seek to limit damage and
losses while protecting life safety; and Provide a general understanding of the behavior of a mid-rise wood-frame
structure similar to those currently in place in the Western U.S. and provide a full-scale data set for verification and
calibration of nonlinear dynamic models. Preparing of the NEESwood Capstone building took exactly four months.
A steel moment frame was added initially under the six-story wood-frame building as a design option for light
commercial space for the wood-frame building. The frame also played an important role as a space truss for lifting of
the specimen. Thus, the very first step of the construction process was to erect the steel frame as the first story of the
building. The steel frame was designed by Simpson Strong-Tie with collaboration by the CSU project team and pre-
fabricated under the supervision of Simpson Strong-Tie in California. The erection of the frame was completed in 10
working days at the designated location in the corner of the Edefense laboratory with the final lifting plan considered.
Once the steel moment frame was completed, a 6x6 nailer was bolted onto the top of the moment frame beams to
provide a surface for the wood construction Fig 1.

Fig. 1. Completed steel frame and steel-wood connection detail

Then, a 2x6 layer was applied to cover the top of the steel column. All nailers were cut and left out at the locations
where the ATS rods attached to the top flange of the steel beams. The floor system for the first story wood frame
building was placed on the nailers, with shear transfer between the floor and the base secured by specially designed
bolted plate connections. The steel moment frame with nailers attached is shown in Fig 2. Also shown in the figure
are the connector designed for the wood-steel interface [1] and the mid-ply wall in the top right, and some construction
sequence as well.
 Fig. 2. Construction of shear wall system in Capstone building with the double mid-ply wall

In the numerical model for wood shear walls as shown in Fig. 3 was developed using the finite element package
DIANA (Displacement Analyzer), and consists of:

(a) An elastic shell element to model the plywood shear wall,

(b) Elastic beam elements to model the studs, and top and bottom plates, and
(c) Nonlinear degrading distributed interface elements to model the nails.

Fig. 3. Finite element model for wood shear walls

4. NUMERCIAL AND EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

It was not possible to find a fixed reference to instrument the absolute displacements of the structure, i.e. a frame
beside the shake table because of the size of the building. Therefore, an optical tracking measurement system was
employed in the test program to capture the building movement with 50 LED light markers attached to the exterior of
the building at seven sensors for each diaphragm level. The location of these markers is shown in Fig 4.

Fig. 4. LED sensors for optical tracking of absolute displacements on the exterior of the specimen

Fig 5. presents the response time histories in the X and Y direction at all three seismic intensity levels for the first
story as well as for the story that had the largest transient drift. Interestingly, the maximum drifts were observed in the
upper stories instead of the bottom story, which was, in fact, consistent with numerical model predictions performed
prior to testing [1].

Fig. 5. Time history plots for the average inter-story

 A model for the shear wall of the bottom floor in the East–West direction is developed using the proposed element
added to the material library of the commercial software DIANA. Only half of the wall is modeled, assuming
symmetry. The dimension of the wall model is 2.45 m by 2.45 m (8 ft by 8 ft) with studs spaced at 406 mm (16 in.)
and nails at 75 mm (3 in.) at panel edges and at 305 mm (12 in.) at interior studs as shown in Fig 6. The finite element
model consists of an elastic shell element to model the plywood shear wall, elastic beam elements to model the studs
and top and bottom plates, and distributed interface elements to model the nails.

Fig. 6. Wood panel testing specimen

The global response shown in Fig. 7 is used to calibrate the input parameters of an equivalent SDOF system of the
entire building structures tested in. From Fig.7 the initial stiffness of a single bottom shear wall is estimated at 3.5
kN/mm [2].

Fig. 7. Wood panel load–deformation response

 The equivalent SDOF system was subject to the earthquake record of Canoga Park recorded during the Loma
Prieta earthquake (1999) scaled factor is 1.2. This seismic record represents a hazard level of 10% probability of
exceedance in 50 years. The analytical time history response for the roof displacement is shown in Fig. 8, while the
experimental one evaluated from shake table testing at the University of California-San Diego is shown in Fig. 9.[2]

Fig. 8. Analytical time history response

Fig. 9. Experimental time history response

 The analytical time history response of the base shear, which from static equilibrium equals the uplift force at the
corner of the bottom wall (hold down force), is shown in Fig. 10.[2]

Fig. 10. Base shear time history response

5. CONCLUSION

In this paper, from the Capstone test results it can be concluded that the performance-based design procedures
developed in the NEESWood project can be applied to mid-rise light frame wood buildings in seismic regions to
ensure life-safety and provide damage control. The pre-defined drift limits for the Capstone building were satisfied
during the test, verifying the effectiveness of the DDD procedure in drift control. The comparison of seismic test
response and the SAPWood programs numerical results indicate the usefulness of the numerical tool developed within
the NEESWood project for mid-rise wood frame buildings seismic response prediction.
The second study presents a new model for nonlinear seismic analysis of wood building structures. The model is
evaluated by correlation studies with experimentally tested wood shear walls under cyclic loading conditions. The
numerical study confirmed the accuracy of the model in representing the behavior of wood shear walls. The paper
concludes with an analytical evaluation of the global behavior of a wood building structure tested dynamically on a
shake table using the proposed methodology. The study confirmed the accuracy of the methodology and the
importance of incorporating degradation effects for global evaluation of the behavior of wood structures.
 References

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