Abstract

The research hereinafter describes aims at mechanically characterize the behavior of timber framed buildings, with particular focus on their behaviour in seismic zones. An extensive experimental campaign divided into three phases has been completed in order to achieve this objective. In the first phase tests on the connection between sheating panels and timber studs were conducted. Subsequently the behavior of the connections used for anchoring the walls to the foundation were investigated. In the second stage the full scale timber framed walls were subjected to tests. The walls were realized using different materials and different type of connections to the ground. The results have allowed the study of the individual structural components which constitute an entire building, from the single connector to the entire wall. In order to understand the behavior of the components themselves in a real building, and thus their interaction with each other in case of an earthquake, in the third step a shaking table test of a three-story building has been done. All tests have permitted to collect a wealth of data with which to populate a database to be used both to understand in detail the structural behavior of the timber framed building system and in also to validate the proposed formulations. From the analytical point of view, an equation able to provide the horizontal displacement of a wall subject to a horizontal force has been developed. This equation was then successfully validated by comparing the results with those obtained from laboratory tests. For the execution of the tests have been created procedures and set-up ad hoc, that could be used also in the future to carry out similar tests. An important work has been done to achieve a configuration suitable to test full scale timber framed walls through well controlling the boundary conditions.