Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT) structures exhibit satisfactory performance under seismic conditions. This ispossible because of the high strength-to-weight ratio and in-plane stiffness of the CLT panels, and the capacity ofconnections to resist the loads with ductile deformations and limited impairment of strength. This study sum-marises a part of the activities conducted by the Working Group 2 of COST Action FP1402, by presenting an in-depth review of the research works that have analysed the seismic behaviour of CLT structural systems. Thefirstpart of the paper discusses the outcomes of the testing programmes carried out in the lastfifteen years anddescribes the modelling strategies recommended in the literature. The second part of the paper introduces theq-behaviour factor of CLT structures and provides capacity-based principles for their seismic design.
The performance of heavy-timber structures in earthquakes depends strongly on the inelastic behavior of the mechanical connections. Nevertheless, the nonlinear behavior of timber structures is only considered in the design phase indirectly through the use of an R-factor or a q-factor, which reduces the seismic elastic response spectrum. To improve the estimation of this, the seismic performance of a three-story building designed with ring-doweled moment resisting connections is analyzed here. Connections and members were designed to fulfill the seismic detailing requirements present in Eurocode 5 and Eurocode 8 for high ductility class structures. The performance of the structure is evaluated through a probabilistic approach, which accounts for uncertainties in mechanical properties of members and connections. Nonlinear static analyses and multi-record incremental dynamic analyses were performed to characterize the q-factor and develop fragility curves for different damage levels. The results indicate that the detailing requirements of Eurocode 5 and Eurocode 8 are sufficient to achieve the required performance, even though they also indicate that these requirements may be optimized to achieve more cost-effective connections and members. From the obtained fragility curves, it was verified that neglecting modeling uncertainties may lead to overestimation of the collapse capacity.
Joints and shear walls of buildings made from dowel-laminated timber were experimentally investigated and assessed. Based on cyclic tests on shear walls, a nonlinear dynamic building model was developed. The developed model served to evaluate the seismic behaviour of buildings made from dowel-laminated timber and to derive a preliminary behaviour factor q required for seismic design of this building typology.
This paper presents a study on the seismic design of hybrid multi-storey wood buildings made of CLT and Light-Frame shear walls acting at the same level. Within the framework of the force-based method, the aim of this study is to propose a simple formulation in order to establish the value of the q-factor of the hybrid system which could be also implemented in seismic design codes such as Eurocode 8. This was achieved by analysing the results of nonlinear dynamic (time-history) analyses performed on a four storey case-study building with different combinations of CLT and Light-Frame shear walls.
