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A full-scale 2-story mass timber building was tested on the University of California San Diego Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure (UCSD-NHERI) uniaxial shake table during the period from June 2017 to September 2017. The main objective of the experimental program was to test the performance of mass timber building designs with different seismic lateral force–resisting systems. The focus of this study is on a building configuration designed using self-centering post-tensioned cross-laminated timber (CLT) rocking walls with U-shaped steel flexural plate energy dissipators. The shake-table tests were designed to subject the building to a series of earthquake ground motions of increasing intensity, ranging from a service-level earthquake to 1.20 times the maximum considered earthquake intensity. Between each ground motion, low-amplitude white-noise excitations were applied to the building, which responded as a quasilinear system. In this paper, two output-only operational modal analysis methods are used to estimate the modal parameters (frequency, damping, and mode shapes) based on acceleration data collected during the white-noise shake-table tests. The correlations of observed damage and repairs performed during the experimental program with changes in estimated modal features are reported. The modal parameters estimated from the testing program are also compared with a linear finite-element model that is used to validate the modal identification results and study the performance of the two system identification methods for CLT rocking structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Improving predictive relationships between strong ground motion and seismically induced damage in buildings is an important topic for seismic risk assessment. Spectral acceleration at a structure’s fundamental period S a ( T 1 ) has often been used as the indicator of the potential damage a given ground motion may induce on structural systems. However, such a scalar indicator (Damage Potential Indicator, DPI) captures only limited information about the ground motion time history and response spectrum shape. In a severely damaged state, the effective period of a structure will change, which makes the structure respond to other parts of the response spectrum. In this study, a new response spectrum-based DPI that contains an intensity component and a spectral shape component is proposed. The critical period range of the response spectrum that should be considered in spectral shape evaluation is determined using a circle rule for bilinear single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) systems. The effectiveness of the newly proposed DPI is validated by comparing damage potential similarity using a database of ground motion records. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Earthquake damage to light-frame wood buildings is a major concern for North America because of the volume of this construction type. In order to estimate wood building damage using synthetic ground motions, we need to verify the ability of synthetically generated ground motions to simulate realistic damage for this structure type. Through a calibrated damage potential indicator, four different synthetic ground motion models are compared with the historically recorded ground motions at corresponding sites. We conclude that damage for sites farther from the fault (>20 km) is under-predicted on average and damage at closer sites is sometimes over-predicted. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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 1,350 m2(14,000 ft2) 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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In July 2009, a full-scale mid-rise light-frame wood apartment building was subjected to a series of earthquakes at the world’s largest shake table in Miki, Japan. The test program consisted of two major phases: the building tested in the first phase consisted of a single-story steel special moment frame (SMF) with six stories of wood on top, and the second phase consisted of locking down the steel story and testing the six-story light-frame wood building by itself. This paper focuses on the test results for the seven-story steel–wood building tested to earthquakes having return periods of 72 and 665 years. The objective of this phase of the test program was to investigate the performance of a mid-rise light-frame wood building with a first-story moment frame when subjected to a major earthquake, essentially providing a landmark data set to the seismic engineering research community. The building consisted of 225 square meters for retail space at the first story and 1350 square meters of multi-family residential living space with 23 apartment units above. The building was instrumented with just over 300 sensors and 50 LED optical tracking points to measure the component and global responses, respectively. In this paper the seven-story test specimen is described and the resulting seismic response and behavior is summarized. Detailed damage inspection was performed following each of these tests, and representative images are presented and discussed. The building was found to perform excellently, with very little damage following an event that was slightly larger (×1.16) than the design-level event for the city of Los Angeles, California. The peak global drift at roof level was 166 mm, and the peak inter-story drifts were approximately 1.3%. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper presents an empirical seismic loss analysis procedure for woodframe buildings and examines how it can be utilized to provide input for the development of seismic performance objectives for woodframe buildings in terms of economic loss. This type of performance measure is more directly useful to building owners than qualitative performance levels such as “Life Safety” proposed in first generation performance-based seismic design documents. The procedure combines the PEER loss estimation methodology with the most up-to-date seismic numerical structural models for woodframe buildings and experimental data from full-scale shake table tests. The resulting loss estimates are quite reasonable when compared to observations from the 1994 Northridge, CA earthquake. The procedure is applied to two-story, single-family residential structures to estimate losses as a function of ground motion intensity and building design, and the results are discussed to illustrate how they can be used to help: (1) characterize estimated losses, (2) define performance objectives, and (3) guide design to meet those performance objectives. The study provides the first fully comprehensive application of the PEER methodology to woodframe buildings. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]