Experimental Seismic Response of a Full-Scale Six-Story Light-Frame Wood Building
Publication: Journal of Structural Engineering
Volume 136, Issue 10
Abstract
In July 2009, a full-scale midrise light-frame wood apartment building was subjected to a series of earthquakes at the world’s largest shake table in Miki, Japan. This article focuses on the test results of that full-scale six-story light-frame wood building. The objectives of the testing program were to (1) demonstrate that the performance-based seismic design procedure developed as part of the 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 midrise light-frame wood buildings respond, in general, to a major earthquake while providing a landmark data set to the seismic engineering research community. The building consisted of of living space and had 23 apartment units; approximately one-half one-bedroom units and one-half two-bedroom units. The building was subjected to three earthquakes ranging from seismic intensities corresponding to the 72-year event to the 2,500-year event for Los Angeles. In this paper, the construction of the NEESWood Capstone Building is explained and the resulting seismic response in terms of base shears, selected wall drifts, global interstory drifts, accelerations, hold-down forces, and roof drifts are presented. Detailed damage inspection was performed following each test and those results are summarized also. The building performed excellently with little damage even following the 2,500-year earthquake. The global drift at roof level was approximately 0.25 m and maximum interstory 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.
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Acknowledgments
The material presented in this paper is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. NSFCMMI-0529903 (NEES Research) and NSFCMMI-0402490 (NEES Operations). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the writer(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. The writers are grateful to the overall coinvestigators of the NEESWood project team made up of David V. Rosowsky, Andre Filiatrault, Rachel A. Davidson, and Michael D. Symans. Thank you also to Weichang Pang of Clemson University for his participation in the design portion of the NEESWood Capstone building. Thank you to NSF REU’s Doug Allen and Kathryn Pfrefzschner, researchers Izumi Nakamura, Chikahiro Minowa, N. Kawai, and Mikio Koshihara at the University of Tokyo. Two graduate students, Kazaki Tachibana and Tomoya Okazaki, contributed to the construction and instrumentation of the NEESWood Capstone building and a former Ph.D. student, Kimberly Cronin, assisted with the architectural design of the Capstone building early in the project. Thank you also to Tim Ellis of Simpson Strong Tie Co., David Clyne and Mr Yumoto of Maui Homes U.S.A. Technical collaborators beyond the authors affiliation included the U.S. Forest Product Laboratory, FP Innovations-Forintek Division, and Maui Homes U.S.A. Financial and in-kind product and personal donations were provided by Simpson Strong Tie, Maui Homes, B.C. Ministry of Housing and Social Development, Stanley Bostitch, Strocal Inc., Structural Solutions Inc., Louisiana Pacific Corp., Natural Resources Canada, Forestry Innovation Investment, APA-The Engineered Wood Association, American Forest and Paper Association, Howdy, Ainsworth, Calvert Glulam, and the Association of Japan. Finally, the writers would like to thank one of the anonymous reviewers for their detailed edit of the manuscript.
References
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Pei, S., van de Lindt, J. W., Pryor, S., Shimizu, H., and Isoda, H. (2010). “Seismic testing of a full-scale woodframe condominium: The NEESWood Capstone Test Program.” NEESWood Rep. No. NW-04, Colorado State Univ., Fort Collins, CO, ⟨http://www.engr.colostate.edu/NEESWood/⟩ (Aug. 18, 2009).
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Structural Engineering
Volume 136 • Issue 10 • October 2010
Pages: 1262 - 1272
Copyright
© 2010 ASCE.
History
Received: Nov 9, 2009
Accepted: Mar 21, 2010
Published online: Apr 8, 2010
Published in print: Oct 2010
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