NEESWood: Development of a Performance-Based Seismic Design Philosophy for Mid-rise Woodframe Construction
Published February 25, 2019 This content is archived.
Graduate Student: Ioannis P. Christovasilis
Post-doctoral Fellow: Assawin Wanitkorkul
Principal Investigator: Andre Filiatrault
Project Completion Date: 12-31-2006
A full-scale, two-story, light-frame wood townhouse building, designed according to modern US engineered seismic design requirements, was tested on two tri-axial shake tables operating in unison, as part of the testing program defined for the NEESWood Project.
Summary
The main objective of this experimental study was to determine the dynamic characteristics and the seismic performance of the test building under various base input intensities, representative of both ordinary and near-field ground motions in southern California. The building was tested with and without interior (gypsum wallboard) and exterior (stucco) wall finishes. The test results revealed that the installation of gypsum wallboard to the interior surfaces of structural wood sheathed walls substantially improved the seismic response of the test building. The application of exterior stucco further improved the seismic response of the test building, particularly in its longitudinal direction, where the shear response of low aspect ratio wall piers dominated. These shake table test results provide the evidence of the significant influence that wall finish materials have on the behavior of lateral load-resisting systems in light-frame wood construction.
Report
Sponsors
This project is supported by the George E. Brown, Jr. Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation program of the National Science Foundation under Grant No. CMMI-0529903 (NEES Research) and CMMI-0402490 (NEES Operations).