A Component Model for Cyclic Behaviour of Wooden Structures

Wooden structures have become widespread in several regions of the world, including earthquake-prone areas. An estimation of their dissipative capacity is of fundamental importance for an accurate design for seismic actions. To reproduce the structural behaviour under earthquake excitation, a numerical model was developed and validated on experimental results. The cyclic behaviour of connections for cross-laminated (X-lam) buildings, light-frame construction and moment-resisting frames were schematised by a piecewise linear hysteretic relationship taking into account strength/stiffness degradation, pinching and friction between elements. This relationship was assigned to a non-linear elasto-plastic spring implemented in Abaqus software package. The spring has to be calibrated on experimental tests performed on single connections, which are the only components dissipating energy in the structure. All the other timber components (Xlam panels, timber beams, sheathing panels, etc.) are regarded as linear elastic. In this work, several examples of cyclic analyses of wooden structures are presented, including X-lam buildings, light-frame construction, and moment-resisting frames. Numerical predictions are compared with experimental results demonstrating the effectiveness of the model.