Analytical and Numerical Models for Wind and Seismic Design and Assessment of Mass Timber Diaphragms
Publication: Journal of Structural Engineering
Volume 150, Issue 2
Abstract
While the use of cross-laminated timber (CLT) panels for building construction has increased over the last several decades, current standards and existing literature provide limited information regarding the design of CLT diaphragms or the prediction of their deflections when subjected to wind and strong earthquake motions. This paper presents the design and assessment of a CLT diaphragm that was part of a full-scale two-story structure subjected to shake-table testing. An analytical model is proposed for diaphragm deflection accounting for in-plane shear and bending stiffness, as well as the stiffness of various connections. Moreover, a refined numerical modeling strategy is proposed in order to consider phenomena such as panel-to-panel gap closure. Results indicate that the analytical model yields conservative results both in terms of deflections and forces when compared to the numerical model that simulates similar sources of strength and stiffness. The analytical model is suitable for the design of symmetric diaphragms with regular shapes, whereas the numerical model can also be used to model asymmetric diaphragms with irregular shapes.
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Data Availability Statement
Some or all data, models, or code that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Acknowledgments
The first author would like to acknowledge the support of the Portuguese Science Foundation (FCT), through Ph.D. Grant PD/BD/113679/2015 included in the InfraRisk-PhD program. The first author would also like to acknowledge the support of Oregon State University during the period in which he was a visiting Ph.D. Student at this institution. The first, second, and tenth authors were partially financed by FEDER funds through the Competitivity and Internationalization Operational Programme COMPETE, Portugal 2020, and by FCT—Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology—funds within the scope of the Timquake Project POCI-01-0145-FEDER-032031. This work was financially supported by the USDA Agricultural Research Service in cooperation with the Tallwood Design Institute under Grant No. 58–0204–6–002. Additional thanks to Simpson Strong-Tie and DR Johnson for their support. This research project was also supported by the US National Science Foundation through a number of collaborative awards, including CMMI 1636164, CMMI 1634204, and CMMI 1634628. The use of the referenced shake-table experimental facility is supported by the National Science Foundation’s Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure (NHERI) Program. The authors would like to especially thank the NHERI at the UCSD site management and staff, who helped greatly in the construction and testing program. The authors also would like to acknowledge individual industry collaborators and students who worked on this project, including Brian DeMeza, Jace Furley, Gabriele Tamagnone, Daniel Griesenauer, Ethan Judy, Steven Kordziel, Aleesha Busch, Ali Hansan, Joycelyn Ng, Monica Y. Liu, and Ata Mohseni. The opinions presented are solely those of the authors and do not reflect the opinions or endorsements of the funding agencies.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Structural Engineering
Volume 150 • Issue 2 • February 2024
Copyright
© 2023 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Nov 18, 2022
Accepted: Aug 15, 2023
Published online: Dec 7, 2023
Published in print: Feb 1, 2024
Discussion open until: May 7, 2024
ASCE Technical Topics:
- Analysis (by type)
- Building design
- Building materials
- Continuum mechanics
- Design (by type)
- Diaphragms (structural)
- Displacement (mechanics)
- Earthquake engineering
- Engineering fundamentals
- Engineering materials (by type)
- Engineering mechanics
- Geotechnical engineering
- Laboratory tests
- Materials engineering
- Models (by type)
- Numerical analysis
- Numerical models
- Seismic design
- Shake table tests
- Solid mechanics
- Structural engineering
- Structural mechanics
- Structural members
- Structural systems
- Tests (by type)
- Wood and wood products
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