Damage and Damage Prediction for Wood Shearwalls Subjected to Simulated Earthquake Loads

Woodframe structures represent the most common structure type within the residential building stock in the United States. These relatively light structures perform well with regard to life safety and collapse during earthquakes, but can be significantly damaged resulting in large financial losses. Societal demands for damage-limiting design philosophies in the wake of the Northridge earthquake have fueled researchers and practitioners need to understand and better predict damage to woodframe structures. This paper examines damage to the lateral load carrying assemblies within woodframe structures, namely shearwalls. This is presented within the context of damage prediction for a wood shearwall assembly, and shortcomings and needs of such an approach are subsequently addressed. The incremental dynamic analysis approach is also examined as a possible tool for damage prediction. Qualitative damage descriptions and seismic force demands matched very well while maximum transient drifts did not match experimental results well. The potential for development of a whole-structure predictive damage model and its integration into the development of a performance-based seismic design development for woodframe structures is examined.