This paper explains an experimental study on a full-scale L-shape single story light frame wood house under the uniform lateral load simulated using a gasbag. The study verifies that shear walls are staggered to each other and the 1.0-m offset between them behave as a continuous shear wall, floor diaphragm with a reentrant corner up to 1.0 m that does not need a continuous end chord. Degradation in racking stiffness of light frame wood construction after continuously repeated cyclic lateral loads is not observable, while intermittent and larger amplitude cycling can cause observable settling of residual deformation and degradation in racking stiffness. The rigidity performance and high racking resistance of the floor diaphragm enables the light frame wood building to remain intact under ultimate lateral load, and recommends interstory percent drift restrictions for the lateral wind load design of the structures and the way to properly calculate racking capacity of gypsum sheathings. The conclusion of this paper can benefit the engineering practice of the light frame wood structures in hazard lateral load regions.
[1]
Greg Foliente,et al.
Design of timber structures subjected to extreme loads
,
1998
.
[2]
David V. Rosowsky.
Performance of timber buildings under high wind loads
,
2002
.
[3]
Bruce R. Ellingwood,et al.
Performance-Based Engineering of Wood Frame Housing: Fragility Analysis Methodology
,
2002
.
[4]
Greg Foliente,et al.
Load-Sharing and Redistribution in a One-Story Woodframe Building
,
2003
.
[5]
Greg Foliente,et al.
Design Models of Light Frame Wood Buildings under Lateral Loads
,
2004
.
[6]
van de Lindt,et al.
Evolution of Wood Shear Wall Testing, Modeling, and Reliability Analysis: Bibliography
,
2004
.