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Earthquakes may induce serious dynamic loads acting on buildings, which can lead to damage or even destruction of the whole structure. In densely populated areas, it is quite common that buildings are located very close one to another which can result in pounding between them during ground motions. Due to the environmental awareness, multi-story timber frame buildings are gaining popularity and therefore there is a need to investigate the effects of structural collisions on seismic response of such buildings. In this paper, the results of advanced numerical FEM simulation, focused on inter-story pounding between two adjacent multi-story timber frame buildings, are presented. The results of the study show that structural interactions have a significant influence on the overall response of buildings exposed to damaging seismic excitations. Moreover, due to deformability of buildings made of wood, pounding may change response of such buildings much more, as compared to steel, reinforced concrete or masonry structures. Finally, the results confirm that the use of the nonlinear FEM with detailed representation of material and geometric structural properties can be considered as the effective approach in obtaining the accurate response of colliding timber frame buildings during earthquakes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wood frame buildings are very popular in regions that are exposed to different dynamic excitations, such as damaging earthquakes. Their seismic resistance is really important in order to prevent structural damages and human losses. This paper presents the results of advanced numerical investigation carried out using the FEM. Based on the models of wall panels, the numerical model of real structure of the wood frame building has been proposed for two cases of thermal insulation (using polyurethane foam and mineral wool). Then, the modal analysis for both models has been conducted so as to compare the frequencies of natural vibrations. Finally, the linear and nonlinear dynamic analyses have been carried out so as to investigate the structural behavior under damaging earthquake excitation. The results of the numerical investigation clearly confirm the beneficial effect of using polyurethane foam as thermal insulation. This can be seen both in the results of modal analysis (higher natural frequencies of building) and seismic analyses, which resulted in a significant reduction in peak values of displacements and accelerations, as compared to the case when mineral wool is applied. Moreover, the results of investigation confirm that the use of the FEM with detailed representation of material and geometric structural properties together with the Newmark algorithm can be considered as the effective approach so as to obtain the accurate response of wood frame building under dynamic loading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]