Project contact is Craig Mitchell at Black Box Offsite Solutions
Summary
The study assesses the current state of the prefabrication industry in Canada and identifies key challenges and potential market opportunities in the sector for the increased use of mass timber. This analysis of the current state of the industry examines all forms of prefabrication, with a focus on wood (light wood frame and mass timber) where possible. A more detailed analysis focuses on future mass timber market opportunities in Canada and globally, including prefabricated timber building elements (i.e. structural components, retrofit components, etc.) and building typologies. Recommendations will inform policy decisions and other efforts required to support the further development and adoption of prefabricated timber buildings in Canada.
Although energy dissipation is one of the key factors in resisting seismic force, current design codes only take into account the ductility of the backbone properties of hysteresis curves, and the energy dissipation is usually not accounted for. This paper focuses on understanding and assessing the influence of energy dissipation due to different pinching levels on the seismic performance of a light-frame wood shear wall system. Timber structures with identical backbone curves but different pinching levels were analyzed. Incremental dynamic analyses were run on a single-degreeof-freedom system with varying pinching stiffness and residual strength. The seismic evaluation is presented by the spectral accelerations causing failure of the structure and the hysteresis energy dissipation under a suite of 22 ground motions (2 components per motion) over a wide range of fundamental periods of typical timber structures. Results show that the effect of pinching on the seismic performance of timber structures is period-dependent. Short period structures are more sensitive to the pinching of hysteresis loops compared to long period structures. The residual strength of pinching loops has a greater influence on the seismic performance than the stiffness of the pinching loops. Hysteretic energy dissipation derived from standard reversed-cyclic tests can provide a better understanding on the seismic resistance of timber structures. However, the hysteretic energy under a seismic event at near-collapse stage neither agrees with quasistatic cyclic test’s energy dissipation nor is well correlated to the maximum seismic capacity of the structure.
Cross Laminated Timber (CLT) and Light Timber Frame (LTF) shear walls are widespread constructive technologies in timber engineering. Despite the intrinsic differences, the lateral response of the two structural systems may be quite similar under specific connection layouts, boundary constraints, and size of the shear walls. This paper compares the experimental cyclic responses of CLT and LTF shear walls characterized by the same size 250×250cm, and loaded according to the EN 12512 protocol. The rigid-body rotation of the shear walls prevails over the deformation and rigid-body translation in the post-elastic displacement range. As a consequence, a capacity model of the two systems based on the sole hold-down response accurately seizes the observed cyclic response, despite ignoring the other resisting contributions. The authors examine the differences exhibited by the CLT and LTF shear walls and the related error corresponding to a capacity model based on the sole hold down restraints. Additionally, it is assessed the overstrength of the CLT panel and LTF sheathing to the shear walls collapse due to the hold-down failure. The estimated overstrength factor is the most meaningful difference between the two structural systems in the considered experimental layouts.
