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The structural in-plane seismic performance of tall wood-frame walls

Large commercial and industrial developments such as warehouses and other open-concept designs have long been built utilizing tilt-up concrete, steel-frame and masonry technologies. More recently, tall wood-frame walls have emerged as a promising alternative to the existing structure types. Research is currently being performed to investigate tall wood-frame wall design properties. Tall wood-frame wall responses to gravity, wind and seismic loading scenarios need to be looked into. This thesis focuses on the in-plane performance, specifically seismic performance, of tall wood-based walls. Though small wood-frame residential buildings have shown exceptional seismic response performance in the past, wood tall wall performance is relatively unknown. Full-scale wood-based tall walls were monotonically and cyclically tested. Stud material and spacing, sheathing type and thickness, and nail style and spacing were investigated, as was the influence of blocking and the influence of vertical loading. In addition, a simplified stud-toplate hold-down connection was also used in the full-scale walls. These stud-to-plate connections were tested separately as well, with the aim being to more thoroughly understand the behaviour of these inexpensive and more easily constructed connections. Finally, individual sheathing-to-framing connections were tested. These were needed to permit subsequent analytical modelling of the tall walls. Verification of the full-scale tall wall tests as well as predictive wall responses of untested wall configurations was done utilizing the wood-based structural analysis software, CASHEW. The experimental results and analytical results were analyzed and compared with the significant findings presented. The C A S H E W results were difficult to correlate with the experimental results, though an effort was made. Expected tall wall behaviours are presented and discussed. Moreover, wood-based tall wall design limitations and recommendations are given. These findings help provide a seismic design basis for wood-based tall walls.